


Little Red Riding Hood

by fakescorpion (SiZodiac)



Category: Batman (Movies - Nolan), Batman - All Media Types, DCU (Animated), DCU (Movies), Justice League, Superman - All Media Types
Genre: Identity Issues, Identity Porn, M/M, Mental Health Issues, Moral Debates, Points of View, Social Issues
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-02-23
Updated: 2017-12-15
Packaged: 2018-03-14 17:03:20
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 11
Words: 37,127
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3418589
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SiZodiac/pseuds/fakescorpion
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>You meet someone like Red Hood Jon in every city. You need not know him, you need not remember him, but Kal-El feels that he has fallen in love with him. The Man of Steel realizes that he has fallen in love with a crook. As he does not understand a city like Gotham, he does not understand a person like Jon.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * A translation of [Little Red Riding Hood 小红帽](https://archiveofourown.org/works/654962) by [greenlock](https://archiveofourown.org/users/greenlock/pseuds/greenlock). 



> Lots of thanks to Greenlock, I now have permission to translate her masterpiece! If there is any glaring grammar or spelling mistakes, please don’t hesitate to point them out.
> 
> 感謝Greenlock太太, 我會盡我所能將您的傑作翻譯成英文! 如果各位朋友發現我有什麼文法或拼字上的錯誤, 也非常歡迎指正.

Kal-El sees the guy limp off the platform of the elevated monorail.

His name is Jon, and he takes every step like a drunkard. He doesn’t like to put any pressure on his left leg, just lightly taps the ground before lifting it, as if he would be glued stuck by something on the floor if he stamps any harder. Most people would think this leg is injured—expected even, for a guy like him to carry a couple nonlethal minor injuries. Perhaps he had a couple more to drink, slipped under the influence on the Gotham River riverbanks; perhaps he just hanged out late one night, only to be ran over by some rich fop leaving their parties on extravagant sports cars; or perhaps he kept some extra rent for himself secretly from the local boss, was discovered, and was rounded up by the local gang… of course, he could have done nothing and still be fair game. Officers love to pick on guys like him. Guys who has one of those standard faces, seen by the hundreds in every prison, who ended up there merely because of a few extra unearned Franklins or some women’s perfumed handbags. The wardens use them to play games, warning off the others. Their pictures were probably even printed on the NPA textbooks.

Kal scans the crook’s left leg, the crook Red Hood Jon. In truth, Superman does not actually know what he has been thinking. There are several million people in Gotham, and this wretched guy is the one he ends up taking notice of. He has been observing him for some time as he floated above the clouds, before it dawns on him to check on the leg wound. He carefully scans the bones with his X-ray vision, concludes that it had indeed been broken, but healing, though still with hairline cracks on the tibia.

This person should be lying down rather than moving about like this, or the simple fracture could potentially turn into a displacement fracture, and by then, Kal doubt the man has the money for a proper doctor.

Maybe he did not want to go to the doctors in the first place. As some people suffer as they live, who would readily trade fractures for cancers.

Jon walks to the mouth of an alley as Kal looks on, waving at two white teenagers in greeting. Both boys are wearing replicas of the Gotham Knights jersey. Jon ruffles one on the head in an offhanded manner, before the taller of the two throws an arm around his shoulders. They are talking.

Kal focuses his super-hearing. The taller kid is hollering merrily in broken English, a Spanish accent evident in his tone, “Hey dude, I haven’t seen you for over a month! Have you been ‘in’ again?”

Jon raises his left leg for them to see. “I broke my leg. I’ll say, Bonnie-boy, Angelo should be in class right now! Seriously pal, you cannot always let your brother skip school to play ball.”

Kal notices that Jon speaks with a standard Midwestern accent; some of the words are even pleasant on the ears when he says them. And if he doesn’t speak so fast, it would resemble the quiet British accent common in many old movies.

“Oh, Angelo don’t need no school, he has work,” Tall boy Bonnie took the ball from his brother’s hands, throwing it for a bit. Superman wants to see the expression on his face, but the angle is wrong. When he drifts to the right angle, that child has turned again, holding the ball while bending downwards to do a few fancy moves.

Jon kneads Angelo’s dark brown hair, “You have to tell me all about it.”

Between the orange tints of the clouds, Kal lifts an eyebrow. He sees Red Hood Jon— he was wearing an old double coat, with a reddish hood that come with the coat pulled low over his head, so faded it would be hard-pressed to tell its original color—is this the reason he is called ‘Red Hood’ among his peers? For a second there, Kal sees the profile of the face hidden under the hood. The man has a lackluster decadent face, full of oily sweat, but is wearing a dissonant expression.

The expression more commonly known as ‘concern’ among men, it appears only for a split second, like the strike of a match, and it lights up his whole person.

He looks at Angelo with concern, while rubbing his head. The child really looks quite unhappy. “My mom burnt her hand, she can’t work anymore,” he says, “Someone has to take up her part, and she needs rest.”

Jon turns to Bonnie, “… burnt her hand?” He repeats mechanically. Kal cannot see most of his face at the moment, but judging from the tone, he must be frowning.

“Happened at the restaurant she works in, a whole fucking bucket of boiling water fell on her, they say she’s lucky to just burn her hand,” Bonnie says, “Fuck, from what I can tell, her whole hand is cooked. That was the only work she can do, now not even that. It pays very little, we have rents due and we still need to eat. I have my ways and I said I would provide for Angelo, though just short of a few hundred bucks, but this fucking stupid boy ran off and got himself a job.”

“What job?” Kal hears Jon drawing in a breath. It won’t help him; the air in this city is polluted, muddy, and useless in times like these.

“Yours,” Angelo says, “Jon… I’m doing your job. I collect money for ‘Python van Dessa’ as you did. You were missing for a long time, van Dessa thought the cops had you.”

Red Hood Jon exhales, slowly, as if it takes more effort than it actually does. Perhaps he controls himself this way, adjusting his emotions. Sometimes even crooks need to adjust their despondency, Kal has not thought about this before, and now he does.

“Nearly. As a result, I was this close to being crippled.” He gestures at his left leg, then again pats Angelo on the head. In an almost gentle voice, he tells him, “You should go back to school, kid, you can’t collect money for pimps the rest of your life.” Jon pushes Bonnie lightly, “You know what I meant. I am not blaming the boy for stealing my job, knowing that type of fucking labor I have a handful waiting on the side. I’ll get you some money in a bit, there’s bound to be a couple hundred here and there. No need to worry, pal, you’re going to make it.”

He certainly does not have any jobs waiting, Superman thinks, what can he do? Break the law—that is the only thing he can do: steal, cheat, or rob. They may not even qualify for residence. In financial debt, with multiple children, mother without a job and needing to recuperate. Medicine requires money as well. Jon wants to help them, but that does not mean he should break the law.

Gotham, Batman’s territory, his city. Red Hood Jon better not run into the vigilante as he commits his robbery. Superman knows Batman’s method; inexplicably, he does not want the recidivist’s other leg to be broken as well. He does not even want to see him in jail again.

He plunges downward, making a beeline straight from amongst the clouds. Bonnie’s family needs a little money and Red Hood Jon needs a chance, the opportunity to turn over a new leaf and be a good man.

Superman did promise Batman to not intervene with anything in Gotham, but Clark Kent did not.

 

 

Clark Kent trudges down the neighboring alley on the 23rd Street in Gotham City. His new sneakers have been coated with a thick layer of dust, and he has yet to walk 500 meters. He pushes up his glasses, stares at the dirty grim, and tries to control himself to not look too closely at the dust particles’ sharp edges.

He bets the Batman has never been down here. The first time upon the Watchtower, he has observed everyone’s footprints. The Batman has not left any footprints almost, not even the Flash managed to do that. Boots that have touched these streets cannot be spotless, there is no reason for Superman to believe that it is necessary for Batman to step into this place to apprehend Gotham’s criminals.

He has done well enough in securing a city’s public safety; before him, there’s yet any person to stand, to single-handedly achieve so much. Except Kal—Clark—has always considered his way to be a little inappropriate.

Clark walks onward, a little awkward in both his expression and his gait. Not because he has to accommodate the gravitational switch from flight to walk, but because he is not very good at doing such a thing as this: he has to casually walk pass a possible kleptomaniacal crook, ‘pretends’ to knock off his wallet by accident as he dig for a cigarette.

This certainly can be considered a major event for Clark, as it has been years since he last smoked, and his pockets haven’t carried any cigarettes for an equally long time. It only takes two seconds for him to change his uniform for this suit, but coming up with this approach unquestionably takes a slightly longer time. He purposely takes a detour to the local convenience store for a box of cigarettes just to make sure his show look a bit more natural.

He glances around the street corner, X-ray vision allows him to see through rows of building. He sees Red Hood Jon standing where he left him, both hands deep in his pockets. What did one of those articles say on this? Many kleptomaniacs or professional thieves like to shove their hands in their pockets when not at work. He cannot seem to recall from which column on the Daily Planet did that article belongs to, so maybe it was from one of those popular novel series instead.

Both the brothers Bonnie and Angelo are still there apparently, though some ways off, passing the ball between each other over a short distance, seemingly without a care in the world, regardless if it concerns traffic or the plight their family now faces. Jon is lingering on the side, expression gloomy, that Clark has reason enough to believe his head is now full of nothing but bad ideas. At this closer distance Clark notices that underneath the red hoodie the man wears is a black Gotham Knights baseball cap, pulled low, its visor—as with his coat collar—is stained with smudge.

He might not be a brunette, maybe a blond. Everyone knows that a blond boy in this gang-ridden neighborhood isn’t safe. Clark cannot help but toy with the idea, although he himself is not sure why he would want to pay attention to details such as this.

He thinks he would whistle as he walk over, reach for the cigarette once he gets to the mouth of an alley, and his wallet would fall out, just as he has planned it. There are five hundred dollars in there, five Franklins, a sizable chunk out of reporter Clark Kent’s weekly salary. He is not a magnate like Oliver Queen or Bruce Wayne, and his kindness may seem meager once having a price tag placed over it, but still better than nothing. He only hopes that they would be used wisely.

Clark gets to the alley, only a few steps away from Red Hood Jon. He starts whistling as he reaches into his jacket, all while trying to visualize how chain smokers do it. He doesn’t want to call the attention of this crook to himself, but is also worried that Jon won’t see the wallet. Clark is moving forward before actually being ready; his thoughts are all over the place as he digs into his pocket, using two fingers to hook onto the wallet and pushes. It falls, almost landing on Jon’s toes.

Then the owner walks away whistling, his pace seems slightly faster than before. Clark quickly wanders into a different alley, walks a dozen steps, before turning back to take a peek.

He doesn’t need to use X-ray vision for this distance. He can see Red Hood Jon fine as he bends down to pick up Clark Kent’s wallet.

Jon flips it open as he checks the first slot and the photo frame—Clark has emptied it once he decided to sacrifice the wallet, and now he’s glad he did. Even as he was deciding to help this man in the dirty red cap out, he had not intended on letting him intrude further into his personal life. Absolutely not.

The man has taken out the bill, fingering the money in a way reminisce of an adept. Bonnie and Angelo come over. “The hell’s this? Five old man’s heads?” Bonnie exclaims, “That’s a huge sum! Oh! —that guy just now, God! Jonny, you…”

“I haven’t done anything yet,” Red Hood Jon says in a quiet voice. This is a very noisy street corner, but Clark thinks the man sounds like he is speaking in an empty lot. “The idiot dropped it on his own.”

“Wow!” Bonnie looks like he is going to burst in delight, face flushed a deep crimson beneath the freckles on the side of his nose. He pounds on his friend’s shoulder in an exaggerating manner, “A large sum! You can have something nice to eat for once, old pal, then you can get that gal over at van Dessa’s! The one called Roche, you said you liked her…”

Jon takes out three hundred dollar bills, rolls them up, then sticks them into Angelo’s hands, “Here’s a little reward for not laying claim to things that ain’t rightfully yours.”

He does not seem to be aware that getting three-fifths off the total sum is a little too much for a so-call reward, he just pats the boy on the shoulder before turning around and walks off. That’s when Clark sees him coming his way, and is so taken aback he almost involuntarily takes off flying.

Jon turns the corner like he knows the place, entering the alley where Clark is lurking, and chucks the wallet at him in a long arch. Clark purposely catches it at an awkward angle, since in fact this guy has an excellent aim.

“We don’t need charity,” the crook rakes his eyes over the reporter, “proletarian boy.”

“This isn’t charity, it is…” Clark considers his wording. Jon’s expression is still cold and decadent, his eyes have seen through a whole fucking world of indifference. You cannot talk sense with such a person, from his perspective, everyone is reasonable yet no one is. And everything comes down to the same dirty fucking business, whether it is with good fucking intentions or for evil fucking sins.

That crook approaches him, staring in a way as though he is going to swallow up this ungainly bespectacled man whole, the sharp eyes under the layered hood’s shadow spark like those of a hungry wolf’s. He reaches out a hand with a worn woolen glove on, maybe he wants to grab hold of Clark to observe a little more closely… but ultimately he does no such thing. His hand falls on his chin, rubbing it a few times before putting it down.

“… But thanks. I say this only for others,” the tone that ruffian uses is as arrogant as any monarch. He raises his head proudly before turning away, dragging his injured leg as he limps back to where he came from.

He gets to the corner of the alley, and only then does he turn back to the reporter and bares some teeth. He waves lightly with two raised fingers. A pilot salute. “Hey, little man! It’s getting dark, my advice is for you to get away from this place. You only have two hundred, bit cheap to gamble your life,” he says.

He has very white teeth. Clark grins.

 

 

_\- Batman Begins (2005)_

 

 

 

 


	2. Chapter 2

The night wind howling through Gotham City stubbornly drags at the corners of Kal’s cape, tugging them in the same direction. The silky cloak wraps tightly around him, practically hugging the figure suspended underneath the low hanging clouds. Even the Last Son of Krypton can feel the intensity of the icy gale. He descends steadily as he lowers in altitude, it feels like immersing himself into the winds.

Just as Batman would, every night.

It is of little difficulty for Kal to find that vigilante of flesh and blood, and locates him without problem—at the docks, crouching low under the square beam in a warehouse.

Kal has known quite a few humans well-practiced in the art of concealing themselves from prying eyes, but the Bat is definitely the most talented amongst his peers. The majority merely drape a veil of darkness to cloak their scent, while he shields himself slightly deeper than even that. Kal does not actually like to spend the ‘night life’ with the guy. He who can hide well-enough under flashing neon lights or elsewhere similar, that even teammates have a difficult time following his traces. It adds to the hardships when jobs demand that they work together, though thankfully for a man with X-ray vision, it merely requires a few extra glances here and there.

The Bat sure knows how to pick a favorable hiding spot. It may be some sort of innate gift. Such as now, a place like this, a warehouse, it is a good idea. Kal cannot fathom how long he has stayed there. An hour? Two hours? Maybe he’s been crouching there since nightfall, above the pile of containers, in the blind spot of the searchlight. There he is, waiting for the preys of this night, with a steady heartbeat, almost completely motionless under the protection of dozens of Wayne Enterprises crates.

Kal observes him from the sky. From his current vantage point he can take in all of Gotham, from the new town district to the neon lights of the developing area, and also the inky blackness of Robinson Park. The docks are dimmer in comparison, though by midnight there are only few lone burners giving off individual specks of illumination around City Hall. Kal thinks it could the GCPD headquarters. Systematically installed streetlamps stretch all the way from there to Adams Port, where the Batman currently locates at, but is abruptly cut off before reaching the coastlines, leaving behind only four crisscrossed searchlights and some illegal cable lightings. This warehouse district has seemingly been unmanned for the two recent decades, as everything has fallen into disrepair, but in actuality has been put to use almost every day.

Superman sees Batman stir, shifting his center of gravity to the left, when he had been squatting on his right leg for all this time. His body plasters against a row of metal lamp holders that had long since abandoned, his movements akin to the yoga Indian monks practiced. Now he is adjusting his position, a sign, that he must favored his left leg for extra force. He has to leap onto another box within the following ten-seconds-window, because there is a team coming his way, seven persons in total, with at least three of them holding flashlights.

A wrong judgment call though, for in the next instant, Kal sees the Bat stretch out his arms and spread caped wings the shade of the deepest night, concealing underneath both the beams from the hand lights and the seven poor souls. Kal doesn’t know what they had done, but one thing is made abundantly clear: this is an evening they will not forget about anytime soon.

First one down is the guy at the forefront. Such a person generally has a considerable amount of courage, and often chooses to hold onto a flashlight—the police issued type that is a cross between a light and a stun gun. Kal believes the guy had attempted to flip the stick he was carrying the moment he saw the assailant, but apparently, he had not been fast enough. Two items are knocked from his grasps one following the other, a flashlight from his left hand and a handgun from his right, the third blow gets him in the chin. The Bat strikes him on the mandible with his palm. It must have hurt.

They start shooting once they lost the second flashlight, and Batman somersaults on the ground before fading into the shadow. Not a particularly elegant evasive maneuver, but practical. Two people have passed out, and the remaining five are half-way there. They sweep the darkness with their sole hand light, searching for the monster cloaked in black.

“He must still be here!” Kal hears them scream. Yes, that is correct, he is still here— behind you, hanging upside-down from up top. A couple times, the panicking men are this close to touching the Bat’s low-draping cape with their outstretched hands.

The second assault comes in completely silent, maybe Batman enjoy playing the Delta Force game, or perhaps he just has the little training that involves snatching off a few at a time. He waits for the group to split up, and then leaps down in a reverse aerial cartwheel before hiding behind a box. If a figure walks unguardedly by, they would be instantly muffled in the Bat’s cloak as he takes down another of his preys. He does it twice more before Kal figures out his tactics: he would put pressure on the back of his quarry’s neck with the thumb and forefinger, resulting in them loosing conscious for a brief period of time. As some Chinese martial arts movies had demonstrated, there are numerous exploitable weak points along the human body.

Two men left standing. One has a gun, the other holding the light. It is time to put an end to this so Batman comes out into the open, solidifying under their gazes. The light is playing tricks, twisting the shadow from the mound of containers before shining the smoky effect on his face. The human features exposed underneath the cowl is turned down in a ferocious snarl.

“Shoot him! Shoot him!!” the two men scream, voice high-pitched.

Batman rolls low, it is too close to dodge bullets with any ease, but he can manage. A batarang leaves his hand before striking the barrel of the gun. The gun-carrying man stares at the bat-shaped metal piece, alarmed. “No! Nonono!” he screams, “You’re not real! You—monster! God help us! You’ll be gone if I just count to thre—” He actually goes to grab the batarang’s sharp edges, blood seeps out, the nightmare does not end.

Ironic… Superman watches on in pity from the sky. If the man cries for help, he is not sure whether he should go.

But then he realizes that he should have gone down after all, to stop it all—the fool with the hand light thinks he can be Bruce Lee, attempting to land a side kick on this particularly violent martial arts expert. Batman chops down on that leg, hard, incapacitating him with the side of a hand—bones snap, Kal can hear the sound. That fragile, horrid… sound.

He uses the X-vision, scanning the suspect as he falls over rolling and wailing in pain. The man’s left tibia is fractured, at a specific location, the same distinctive location… he is maimed in the exact same place as the Gotham trash called Red Hood Jon.

 

 

“Stop it, Batman.” Kal says, but regretting it as those words leave his mouth, as this is the most inappropriate time. He should have waited until the next time he run into the Bat upon the Watchtower, or, at least find some other opportunity. Just not now, not here, impeding the other man’s work on a cold dry night.

He descends, elevating above the pier amid the intersecting beams of searchlights. He is not used to concealing in the dark, besides, he has nothing to hide.

Batman looks up at him, the lens on his cowl reflecting off a terrible pale glow. Kal has always felt that design stands above the rest of the Bat’s uniform, the perfect combination for both protecting one’s eyes and to further intimidate others’ spirits. In films and television shows, monsters with no eyes tend to give off a dreading air, for they lack the key characteristic that convey to the better part of human nature.

“Enough, they cannot do anything now. You should call in the police, and explain to them why these people would also need a doctor.”

Silence. Kal thought he would be furious, as is the case should this happen in a Justice League meeting. But the masked man just keeps his silence as he straightens his body, using the expressionless white lens to glare at Superman.

“S-Superman!” two remaining guys that manage to retain consciousness reach for him, “Help! Help!”

This has to be a fucking dream—but Superman can hear the criminals loud and clear, cursing under their breath as they curl pathetically on the dirty floor. Feeling conscious and uncomfortable, he turns his gaze to the Batman, whose mouth twitches a bit in one corner—too difficult to tell but it can almost be a smile, or perhaps there is something he intends to say. A few seconds pass like this, without either of them uttering a sound, and then the Bat lowers himself, crouching down next to the suspect who has lost all will to resist.

“Deal with…” Kal hears the Bat answers, using a grating sarcastic tone like an echo from a nightmare. He reaches out a gloved hand, thumb and forefinger, and his would-be victim panics. Oh no, don’t do that, don’t.

Kal watches from the sideline without interfering, only once the last of the criminals has passed out does he again refocuses his eyes—this time Kal can see the Bat’s anger, reaching almost to the boiling point, even before the other man open his mouth. “Why are you here? —Superman?”

“I heard people cry for help,” Kal lands onto the ground, keeping his tone as leveled as possible. He is not used to talking to the Batman outside of attendance in any manner that can be interpreted as condescending, and he has the feeling Gotham’s Dark Knight would be even more difficult to communicate with than usual if he tried. He cannot imagine how Batman could mock him while glaring _upwards_ , although he had done exactly that mere moments ago.

“Really,” Batman quirks his lips, standing up, then walks up to Superman. Christ, that is almost a smile, but it’s not, absolutely not. A small quirk of his mouth, says, “I have always thought that Gotham is the blind spot for God’s blessings.”

“Excuse me?” Kal remains still, standing in a substantially upright posture with arms folded over his chest.

Perhaps this ‘Superman style’ attitude of his has in actuality _some_ effect, for Batman comes to a stop two steps away, with both hands curled abidingly into fists, rather than having a finger poke the Big Blue right on the chest ensign. The Bat is somewhat hunching his shoulders though, as if he had every intention to just throw a punch at the resplendent man in front the instant when provoked. The expression he wears is so appalled, not a sneer though skims the border of anger. Kal knows he is going to get the chewing of his life, he can even guess the precise nature of what would follow.

… Expulsion… This, is a decision of the dominator.

“Get out of here, Superman!” there is no hesitation in those words, “Leave my city, Gotham is no place for Saviors.”

Kal closes his eyes, drawing in a deep breath as any human, as though he could also breathe in this unwelcomed commanding phrase. He should not have minded Batman’s growl echoing in his chest, he is not afraid of him, of course not.

So what’s this you’re doing, Batman? Your city has its very own guardian, why is it then that there are still people struggling, crying for help? Kal does not give voice to these questions.

Instead, he says, “You could have done it without being so brutal.”

Batman straightens up, giving the false impression that he just gains an extra inch. His cloak drapes over him, hiding his whole body from view, making him seem taller and darker, more solid than he had seemed. Like a true specter, he sneers, “Why should I have to explain my actions to you? They get what they deserved.”

“Some people just need to be given a chance,” Kal opens his eyes, “Take this person for example, you broke his leg easily, but you do not know him—ahem, I mean, you probably don’t know why he turned to crime on this night rather than stay indoors doing something else or other… maybe he just needed some cash, a few hundred bucks could be enough to buy his conscience and loyalty because he’s truly desperate. Listen Batman, I’m not trying to defend the people you dealt with on a daily basis and I do actually believe you have enough evidence to tell right from wrong. But you probably should look into what the criminals do during the day, as they are someone else’s husband, father, or son. And they… this guy, he has a broken leg now because of you. For humans, this is not a small wound.”

Batman does not move, but Kal sees him pursing his lips again. Though this time it is so blatantly the opposite of a smile, Kal is half-way expecting a punch to the teeth.

I will not fight back, he tells himself.

Batman raises his arm, but instead only to throw back the cloak. A photograph is taken from his utility belt, carefully pinched between the two lethal fingers that’d been dropping people left and right moments ago. “I don’t think you would be interested in seeing this, _Super Savior_ ,” he hisses, voice tense and hoarse.

Kal takes the picture. The image isn’t of a very good quality, but he can still make out a scene from an orgy: a group of men, the number cannot be determined from the bare limbs; two girls, clearly not yet sixteen; cigarettes, scorch marks, semen, beer, blood.

Kal returns the photo to the vigilante. “An illegal prostitution ring?” he asks.

The Bat doesn’t give him a direct answer. Instead, he strides off towards a long row of wooden containers in the most imperious manner a person can manage, and uses the reinforced metal claws on the fingertip of his gloves to dig fiercely into the crevices on the panels. White powder stains his palm.

He shows Superman his hand. “A group that uses refined drugs to lure underage girls into prostitution. What you presumed is merely the tip of the iceberg.”

 

 

 

 


	3. Chapter 3

Jon swears this is the last day.

He has sworn so from the bottom of his heart the moment he met Edrian ‘Sandwich’ Glenn at the backstreet.

That Old Yid[1] had been pushing his broken dining trolley—Glenn and his wife have in fact clumped that old cart together themselves with tin foil and sheet metal, but it still looks like he had inherited it from his father, or someone even older. The cart seems to be pushing a hundred years old, dotted with rust like Gotham City’s water pipes. This doesn’t stop Glenn from wearing that prideful expression while pushing it though, as if he is the personal stableman for the Queen of England. The poor man, he has been in business for longer than billionaire arms dealers like Tony Stark[T1] or Lex Luthor, and Jon can see that he truly believes he is a veteran sort in the commerce business around this new town district, but the truth is the man never quite gets the hang of how to actually serve people. He can’t see that Greco-Roman wrestling doesn’t work on the local thugs, still refuses to provide free dinner when the boys from the mob come asking, and is likewise not in the pocket of any cops. Is it so strange then, that too often he ended up setting up stall next to the trash? But then he will tirelessly points to his homemade sauce, calling out— “Glenn’s Hummus! Glenn’s Falafel[2]! Sandwiches’ best companion, like glamour girls, a touch on the tongue, forever stays in your heart.”

Jon admits that he probably shouldn’t have directed that at grin at Aisha. Aisha Glenn, Old Man Glenn’s little angel; she is studying in the eleventh grade at the Community Christian School and always does up her brown hair in huge curly waves. That head _has_ to be permed, leastwise it’s what Jon believed. Glenn often shows off his daughter to the neighbors. “She can use the computer, typing faster than I could see. She has always gotten straight A’s in spelling. She’ll get out of here one day, once she gets into college.” He likes to put it this way, “I know kids tend to get more defiant the bigger they get, but my wife and I like to keep an open mind. We shouldn’t expect her to be home every holiday.”

Jon sees Aisha bound from her house, long ivory legs alternately moving in haste, so full of vibrant energy that someone must’ve been winding them up. She hops down the simple curving staircase, leather shoes clicking on the wooden boards, as she calls out her father’s name.

This type of stairs is common on the 23rd Street area in Gotham; a few rebars, a few steel alloys, and a few wooden planks… a trail leading to their ‘Home, sweet home.’ Nothing is too strange for this place. Some of those ladders are made from nothing but reinforced bars and crochet sacks; God knows how the gypsies did it, but they could hold people over 230 pounds up just fine. Everyone who lives here are craftsmen at heart: you might find unique tablecloths that seem to be made from the bulrushes growing along the Gotham River riverbanks, if you happened to visit during dinnertime. There are more clothesline here than telephone lines, and it’s a custom of sort for people to hang things out for drying before work. Most work at restaurants or at the docks and some are taxi drivers, either way it would be well over ten hours before anyone returns home, and those cheap clothing would be swaying negligently in the wind, rain or shine. You can paint on them like a canvas, or make into a provisional goal for playing. Recently, it is more popular among kids to take them as targets for those toy batarangs that cost five cents a piece. The owners never cared, since often they would deliberately retrieve the wrong clothesline also—perhaps the whole community shares this habit, and nobody minded trading a couple old shirts for their neighbors’.

Jon watches Aisha Glenn sprint down the staircase, her mother’s oversized sweatshirt pulled over her head, and crosses the bystreet in a hurry. That alleyway never seems to be dry somehow, what do they call it back at new town? Gotham Swamp, something like that. And the next street over, the Colombian immigrant district, the hell Bonnie’s family currently knee deep in, has an endless supply of dust and is very very dry—so they called it the 23rd Mine.

The girl’s heels bring mud splashing onto Jon’s pants. “Hey, handsome!” she chirps in high spirit as she run pass him. And then she is up ahead, clamoring at the top of her lungs, “Ed, Ed, give me fifty bucks!”

‘Ed’ —that’s what she calls her old man, in a voice that sounds like the twitter of birds. His whole family calls him that, she and her siblings; Old Glenn has four children, the oldest is seventeen and the youngest is four. “My angels,” —he calls them— ‘Gabriel and Cherub,’ ‘Uriel and Raphael.’ He sells sandwiches filled with hummus or falafels, one dollar each, taking away the cost and it’s going to be a struggle to make 25 cents per sell. But now his Gabriel is flapping her wings and soaring over Gotham Swamp, holding out a hand asking for 50 dollars.

“I want to buy a Dunlop[3] tennis racket.” She catches up to her father, both arms rest on the old dinner cart as she sways her body, “I joined the tennis club, Ed. I’ve got to have my own racket. The strings on secondhand rackets are always too loose and the ball never bounces. BUT, I don’t think I need a tennis skirt, I can make do with shorts. Ed, give me fifty bucks.”

She seems sincere, though a little hesitant. It’s an effective strategy, as Jon is there to witness Old Edrian counting out coins taken from the lunchbox he uses as a makeshift cashier. This chick, she did it again. She has cheated a month worth of chocolate from her brothers, and then stolen this week’s fresh dairy products and chicken from Mrs. Glenn’s cupboards. As her dad counts out the money, she takes the chance to raise a hand and wave at the red-hatted hooligan in the middle of the road.

She’s not interested in him, he knows. Likewise, he knows she smokes in private and has a boyfriend six years her senior. Said boyfriend Derek works in a record store, but at the same time takes odd jobs for ‘Python van Dessa.’ The image of Jesus is tattooed onto both of his arms; lots of girls over tenth grade are infatuated with his appearance and built; he is always entitled to use young Aisha’s money.

Jon looks up to stare at the open sky, the view sliced into pieces by the crisscrossing clotheslines. Can someone tell me what kind of pollution would result in such strange fucking yellow clouds? —he wonders—he can hear Aisha’s heels treading through the mud anew.

“Hey, handsome!” she repeats as she happily run pass him again, back the same way in the exact same rhythm, only difference being the jingle of coins now in her pocket. Jon grins at her, just to be polite. He’s not interested in her, either; she’s not that pretty and the silly girl has no idea how to dress herself.

Must’ve been this careless grin that angered Glenn, as he makes a show of swinging at the dirty downtrodden man from afar, “You—yes, you—you bastard! What are you grinning at? Wipe that smile off your face! I know what you’re thinking! … …”

“No, you don’t,” Jon murmurs as he lower his head, still smiling. By the time he looks back up, Aisha has slipped back into the house, and she had closed that door without emitting a sound. That is no easy feat.

However, some other noise is coming closer and closer. Jon gives a side glance, only to exclaim in surprise.

It came out of nowhere, Glenn is pushing his sandwich cart charging straight at Red Hood Jon. The small wheels on the triangular turntable at the bottom of the apparatus are splashing up waterfalls as he rushes through the slough. Glenn is using the cart as a tank, filled with rage and making a beeline for the target.

Jon flees. At first dragging at his left leg as he run, staggering along, like any lame as they make their getaway. This damn alley is long and dark, with a furious dad chasing after him like a wild bronco from the Narrows set loose. He runs, the pain shooting up his injured leg is making his vision blurry. He runs, so fast he is forgetting to avoid his wound. But then Jon doesn’t run like he is crippled anymore. So perhaps all cripples forget about their maimed limbs when they are running for their lives.

Jon doesn’t know how far he has run, could be around thirty meters or could be over fifty, but he is familiar with the total length of this alley, as his shelter is at the very end. It’s a rented suite. The old building has three floors, he lives in the basement, and the bathroom and kitchen are on the first floor. He stops at the doorstep. A child aims a piece of plastic at his head, so Jon gets out of the way… it’s a batarang.

Glenn is shouting at him from ten meters back, saying, “I’ll teach you a lesson, you bastard! … If you dared to touch my daughter! I’ve been watching you! Yes! You! —I know they let you out recently, from that dirty slammer! I know what kind of vile idea is in that depraved brain of yours! Van Dessa’s special breed of lackeys! Just leave my Aisha alone!”

Jon pulls his hood lower, covering his ears. This is the last day, he swears to himself, the last day he would tolerate this. He pushes open the door leading into the dreary parlor, the rusty shaft shrieks like a banshee from horror films. Gotham Swamp, a damn fools’ village[T2]. His rent is due tomorrow, but he hasn’t a single piece on his person. He’d rather sleep on the streets or maybe beg the boss for a place to stay. He has a boss again, Python van Dessa, rumor has it that his goods and his men ran into Batman and Superman last night. For jobless and penniless Jon, those superheroes are godsends, now that van Dessa needs additional manpower and all the better if they’re tight-lipped.

Like a certain reliable someone as Red Hood Jon.

Once the door is opened, Jon sees two unfamiliar faces coming his way. Those men are carrying a couch with only one remaining cushion between them. They give him a side glance, one says, “Thanks,” while the other barks out a rude, “Excuse me!”

Jon stares at the couch for a few seconds, before suddenly moves to block their way. “Pal, this looks familiar, you couldn’t have taken it from the basement by any chance, could you?”

“People still want this stuff?” they chuckle like the morons they are, squeezing Jon to one side with their thick arms as they continue on with their work.

“This bed needs out of here as well if it’s not too much trouble!” a man’s voice rings out; it is coming from the basement, his territory. A young voice, without any hint of a Southern accent, rare in this Gotham Swamp area.

The rent isn’t due yet according to Jon’s calculations, at least, not for another twenty hours. There is a burglar in his territory. Come to think of it, he can be a burglar, too, sometimes. A burglar burgled by another burglar, wonderful really.

I’ve got to meet the guy, someone who would trespass upon his equals, Jon thinks as he limp down the stairs.

It’s well-lit in his domain even though he recalls the bulb in the hallway been broken for months, since the third day he rented the basement. He never bothered to change it. But apparently this is a thief that would change the light bulb for the person he robs, a gentleman thief.

Red Hood Jon crosses his arms and stands before the entrance leading into the room.

The landlady that definitely weighs over 230 pounds is standing just inside, blocking him from his mysterious gentleman thief. “Jon,” she licks her plump lips, giving him a portly smile, “You’ve a new roommate, and he had paid the rent for you for another month.”

“Sounds like news,” Jon notes, leaning against the doorframe as he adjusts his center, shifting his throbbing left leg into a more comfortable position.

The landlady practically swims to one side as if she’s pretending to be a submarine, so the man behind her has a place to move. Jon looks over, before narrowing his eyes.

The man standing inside the door is wearing a pair of dirty sneakers and a sepia sports T-shirt. “Hello,” he says.

A young voice, without any hint of a Southern accent. A voice that does not belong to this swamp.

He holds out a hand to Jon, using the other to push up his black-rim glasses. “Nice to meet you. I’m Kent, Clark Kent.”

He obviously, coincidentally, is… the idiot who pretends to drop his wallet in front of Jon.

 

 

“I don’t need a roommate,” Jon states, already squeezing into the room.

This is not a spacious basement; old cardboard boxes have taken up most of the place, most of them are open, filled with worn theatrical props—these are all the landlady’s collections. Her late husband had been a costume designer; he once made armors for Macbeth, sewed robes for Queen Elizabeth. But then he was fired. So he adds a few drops of hemp oil into his whiskey, held in the golden cup Salome presented to Herod Antipas, then drained it as Othello did, before using the sword Laertes pierced Prince Hamlet with to cut open his own throat. That sword _is_ actually made from solid steel, he had polished it until it shines, with a simple slice and the man was gone. None of the tenants know the exact location where he committed suicide, some said it was in this very basement. The smell of rust and mildew are presented here all-year-round, dusty blades and a lunatic’s masks piled high, companionable with a dead man’s tale.

Of course, it also has the cheapest rent.

Jon shifts sideways, slugging through the dreggy stale air with heavy steps as he move carefully pass the submarine-sized woman called Mrs. White. If he touches her belly by mistake, Jon feels he might have a sort of mental breakdown.

He pretends to not see Clark Kent, sauntering into the room with a self-serving gait as he make way to the bed and pulling a paperboard box out from underneath. There are two apples in the box; one good, one half rotten. Jon picks up the partially rotten one, wipes it on his shirt before taking a large bite out of its good side, and then chucks it at the intruder. “Get out,” he demands, throwing himself onto the half-collapsed bed.

He sounds listless and indolent, a sort that’s not going to work on a big guy like Kent. Thus the man dodges the rotten apple, smiling as he turn, hand still outstretched. “I’m Clark Kent.”

“He’s a good boy, Jon.” Mrs. White chimes in, she’s wearing a huge grin on her face. “He also helped me fix the canopy and the ventilator. He came looking for you.”

Jon picks up the other apple and scrubs it repeatedly with his gloves. “I’ve guessed. I never said I would be willing to share the room, Madam, and my rent isn’t even due yet. I’ll pack up and go once it does. So, with all due respect, _leave_ , the both of you,” he grinds out those words from between his teeth, all the while glaring at the fruit, the last of his edibles.

Mrs. White is still blocking the way as she chatter on, “Oh, cutie-pie, he came straight to me and paid for you, saying that he’ll be staying with you for two days… So you don’t know each other? I thought he was an old classmate or something…”

Jon looks up, punctuating his every word, “Get, the hell, OUT.” He continues to scrub at the apple, taking the time to clear his head, before he adds, “Fuck… _please_ , get the hell out, you two, both.”

The twin buns excuse for Mrs. White’s cheeks are shaking, that idiot Clark hurries to intercept. Jon catches a glimpse with the corner of his eyes, of the big man sporting a silly smile as he touch lightly on the woman’s arm. “Don’t worry about it, Madam, I’ll deal with him… this is nothing I couldn’t handle. Jon here is just feeling a bit down.”

The landlady takes a step back, her gigantic body situated between a dead man’s relics and the doorway. “He’s dangerous,” she inclines her head and whispers into his ear, akin to how the elderly gypsy witches would mutter their ominous prophecies. “He’s a hoodlum, must have marijuana stashed somewhere. Darling boy, don’t ever smoke the cigarette he give you.”

“Thank you, Madam, you’re a good person.” Once that idiot has successfully sent the fat woman away, he places his hands on his hips and stands in the doorway. He takes a deep breath. Jon chuckles just as he see a rooster prop tumble over, its beaked head aligning with Clark Kent’s rear. If he took a step back, he would… he does! —and is poked right on his behind. Too bad the fiberglass cock beak doesn’t manage to startle the guy into a jump; on the contrary, with movements clumsy enough to rival that of Frankenstein’s creation[4], his ass snaps the cock’s brain clean off as he turn around.

Jon sits on the edge of the bed, his back hunched with his arms draped over his thighs, the look in his eyes reminiscing of King Arthur’s before the Round Table. “Give me an explanation.” He is playing with the apple in his hand, using it to gesture at Clark, “Why are you interested in me? Or perhaps it is my boss you want? You’re not a cop; even if you are, you’re not getting anything useful from here. So, get out.”

“I’ve helped you pay the rent for the next month, so you can stay for a while longer. I had wanted to pay for two more months, but… uh… I bought you a new sofa, and a new bed… we’ll have to throw this old one out in a moment,” Kent says. He picks up the broken cock prop and attempts to fix its head back onto the rightful place, but all is futile without a bottle of superglue. In the end, he can only stare on awkwardly as it dropped once again, landing with a small thump.

“Yours?” Kent asks, meaning the poor broken thing.

“No, mine is bigger than that,” Jon sneers, finally biting into his precious apple.

“Oh.” Clark stands there, staring at the cock and absentmindedly rubbing at his hands. Jon is unsure what the man would say next, him showing up here itself is a mystery, though in a way not that hard to explain.

“Ah… the thing is, Jon, I’m an investigative reporter,” the man settles on, “I work for the Daily Planet in Metropolis.”

“A reporter,” Jon repeats, between his chewing of the apple, “Well, well… a _reporter_.”

“Yes, I’m a reporter. I don’t work here though, like I said, I work in Metropolis… uh, my boss sent me here to interview Bruce Wayne actually, but the appointment wasn’t set up properly and Wayne’s assistant informed me that we clashed with TIME. They sent out a whole team, wanting to do a complete album on him. All total knockouts the lot of them; the photographer, interviewer, editorial writer…”

Jon rolls his eyes. If I were Wayne I would pick TIME as well, spend time with an entire team of babes as they write pages full of nothing but gossip on him. What can a billionaire playboy’s cock do with a guy like Clark Kent anyway? —he thinks, slowing down his chewing—but the hell does this have to do with me, Red Hood Jon of the 23rd Street district, of the Gotham fucking Swamp?

“My boss said the plan’s cancelled, but the funds he applied for me cannot go to waste, so since I’m already here in Gotham City, I should use this chance to interview the Batman.” Clark straightens the headless rooster model, putting it properly into a box; he is talking very fast. In fact, Jon has never met anyone who could talk this rapidly without becoming incomprehensible before. Clark continues on, “Oh! Everyone know the Batman would never accept an interview; besides, I’ve asked around the neighborhood and apparently most people in this city only regard him as an urban legend. Nobody knows where he came from, nobody knows where he disappeared to; no one can even be sure he actually existed, and isn’t some fictional apparatus the police came up with to scare criminals… come to think of it, my boss is probably just beating himself up over not sending a pretty lady in my place instead… I do have such a coworker; she is shrewd and able, more than a match for the girls at TIME.”

“… What the fuck are you talking about?” Jon cuts him off.

“I want to interview you,” Clark immediately answers, taking out his journalist pass.

Jon stares, dumbfounded, with a shocked expression never before seen on his face, the apple dangling half-way off his teeth.

It can’t be true, a journalist pass can be forged, it means nothing. Jon glares at the so-call reporter, taking everything in; the dirty sneakers, jeans, and T-shirt; the carefully combed and stylized hair, the high cheekbones, the idiotic glasses… and the cerulean blue eyes behind them.

His eyes are so blue they’re like twin orbs of azure crystals.

Fine, the guy seems indistinctive, mobs wouldn’t come up with such a dejected look and undercover cops wouldn’t act like such an amateur. So what is it he’s after? News breadcrumbs? Life experiences? A Pulitzer? Earn some sympathy points from the public by publishing the miserable life of a Gotham lowlife? —On second thought, not a bad idea, but Jon can’t let him do that. You see, Python van Dessa would rip that red-hatted traitor apart, chop off this little reporter’s hands and package them with his press pass to send in a bundle back to Daily Planet’s chief editor.

Heedless of the internal turmoil, Clark approaches Jon so the smaller man can see the picture on his certification more clearly—truth be told, the ID photo is ten times more pathetic than the man’s actual self. “I would like to interview you…” he says, “Don’t worry, I use a pseudonym when I write my articles. Yesterday, I saw you in that alley and you… ah, returned some lost money…”

“… I took three hundred from you,” Jon swallows a piece of fruit with some difficulty, “Seriously, how did you find this place?”

“I found Bonnie and Angelo at the Colombian district, they told me you live here,” the look on Clark’s face is akin to some dolt who’d won the lottery. “I can find anyone I want if I put my mind to it, well, eventually.”

Jon is getting the impression that there is still a lump of something stuck in his throat, and it wasn’t that piece of apple. He licks his chapped lips, “You’re fucking crazy… You should listen to Mrs. White, I really would make you smoke fucking marijuana… Are you some kind of idealist, little man? … Hell…!” He shakes his head, “Interview me… you fucking idiot, delusional, do you have any idea what you’re doing even?”

“I know, I know. I’m only staying for a week. I won’t interfere with anything you do, I can guarantee it. I’ll just be observing you from the sideline, it won’t cause you any unwanted trouble. I could even help you pay an extra month of rent, as payment, but that would have to wait until after I apply for my reimbursement.” Clark is all smiles as he stuffs the journalist badge back into his jeans’ backpocket.

A complete imbecile. He thought he cares about the money? He thought if he could buy Mrs. White over with a few pretty smackers, he could buy him over as well? Jon keeps glaring at those cerulean blue eyes, struggling to control himself to not jump on the guy and give him a thorough beating before dumping him into Gotham River.

“Listen here, buddy,” he’s gripping the half-eaten apple too hard, haggard bloodshot eyes glinting dangerously like rabid dogs, “I don’t think you’d want to know what the hell I’m thinking…”

“Can I start asking questions?” the reporter gets a voice recorder out from a different pocket, clicking it smoothly. “First question—you don’t have to answer it if you don’t want to—Jon, I want to know, did Batman break your leg?”

Jon continues to stare into his eyes. Transparent and naïve, pretty, like those delicate crystal pendants girls love. So pure and ethereal. Clark Kent… a reporter from Daily Planet… right, reporter Clark Kent. What did he just asked?

“This is what you want,” Jon mutters, as if in a trance, “prying into my life… fuck!”

Jon rips off his hat without warning, both layers, fast and ferocious. His hair falls out, exposed; it’s black, and soft; and it is flattened down onto his forehead and making him seem even younger. Jon throws his ball cap away and is sticking the last of the apple into Kent’s empty hand.

Then he leaps up and scoops the reporter up by the back of his head, while using two fingers to hook off the glasses, letting them fall to the floor.

“You want to fuck me. Don’t think I don’t know. You fancy me, hypocrite,” Jon whispers, practically plastered to the bigger man's side.

Clark widened his beautiful blue eyes. “You’re mistaken!” he exclaims like a madman, tilting backwards and stumbling, a hand still clutching at the apple and looking utterly absurd. “This is just an interview! You must’ve never been interviewed… No, stop, don’t, uh—”

Jon tugs at his hair, pulling close, lips brushing over his nose and mouth, then sinking his teeth into the reporter’s lower lip. The voice recorder and the apple fall onto the ground, one following the other.

“Hypocrite.” Jon loosens his hold, his smile hints at the mischief Loki played when he severed all of Lady Sif’s golden hair[T3]. He returns to the bed lazily, back to being the King Arthur of this basement. He stares at Clark coldly as the bigger man crouch on the floor, blindly seeking his glasses and voice recorder.

The reporter has finally retrieved his lost items. “This is bad,” he mutters, “the worst experience ever.” The frame wasn’t broken at least, he thinks, as he places his glasses back onto the bridge of the nose. Then he turns the recovered voice recorder this way and that, checking it carefully for cracks. “Damn, this is a new one…”

Clark presses on a button to listen.

A soft muffled voice sounded from that little piece of metallic device. It is an unusually open voice that echoes in this tiny filthy corner at the end the world, in this very basement, a whisper. That voice carries a strong sense of isolation. It may have come from mere moments ago, but it could have been from another lifetime.

“You fancy me, hypocrite,” it hisses.

Clark looks towards Jon, smile now a bit forced, as he try to again strike up a conversation.

“The audio’s quite good, don’t you think?”

 

 

 

 

* * *

 

**Author's Notes**

[1] Slang for Jews. Yiddish is the historical language of the Ashkenazi Jews, a Jewish ethnic division that coalesced in the Holy Roman Empire. It is now a dying language and has been replaced by Modern Hebrew in Israel. Old Yid means Ashkenazi Jew.

[2] Both are Israelis cuisines. Hummus is a food dip made from mashed chickpeas blended with tahini, olive oil, lemon juice, salt and garlic. Falafel is made with similar ingredients except is deep-fried and prepared in the shape of a ball.

  

_Hummus (left); Falafel (right)_

 

[3] A sports brand. Sell low-end tennis rackets that generally cost 30 to 50 dollars, not durable but cheap.

[4] The monster the Swedish nobility Frankenstein made with dead body parts, he is a character from the novel “Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus (1818)” by English writer Mary Shelley.

 

**Translator's Notes**

[T1] Tony Stark is mentioned a few times in Greenlock’s original work, but not Iron Man nor any of the others from the Marvel universe. I assume this is a DC universe version of the same character, who is a genius playboy billionaire engineer but not a superhero.

[T2] Can be referring to the folk tale about the village of Gotham, Nottinghamshire, England. “Wise Men of Gotham” is the story about a town where people is commonly believed to be either fools or batshit crazy, a village of fools if you will. It is said to be where the infamous Gotham City of DCU got her name.

[T3] Referring to the gods in Norse mythology and the legend of how Loki played a prank by stealing Lady Sif’s hair when she was sleeping. They are unrelated to the Marvel characters sharing the same names.

 

 

 

 


	4. Chapter 4

The titanium double-door leading into the Monitor Womb[T4] of the Watchtower slide open as the sensitive transducer picks up on Kal’s biomechanical signature, closing once he entered, steady and smooth, the attrition almost nonexistent as it emits a quiet hiss.

Superman makes no sound as he is floating two inches off the floor. This space station has a self-stimulated gravity field that perfectly mimics the average gravitational force of that on Earth however, so he _could_ land if he wishes, walk as a normal human, but he doesn’t. In a sense, the Watchtower does not belong to the human world, and so all the alien privileges can be used sparingly here. For Kal, he admits he quite enjoy gliding leisurely this way, and without the need to worry about people screaming or applauding because his feet weren’t touching the ground. When he drifts pass the cafeteria, John Stewart doesn’t even look up from his book. The Kryptonian enjoys this, perhaps this is what he’s been missing all along.

The computer generated holographic is brightly lit in the room, translucent teal-green squares arranged in a semicircular manner in midair, and at the center is a hydraulic controlled alloy-plated seat. A number of silver conduit pipes and conducting wires are pulled underneath the insulated floor panels, stretching to the four corners of this room; some disappeared under the main control seat while others twisted upwards, splitting into smaller branches before entrenching around the armrest, leading to the keys and touch-pads and the metallic protective film that wrapped around it. Like a throne—Kal thinks—when the darkness-clad Batman sits upon it, it would be an eerie skeleton throne.

Kal floats by the doorway, just watching. All is quiet.

There is no wind in this solid silvery space, only the simulated ventilating system is there to silently circulate the flow of air at the rate imperceptible to the human body. Superman’s red cape soundlessly draped over his shoulders; completely motionless, he suspends behind the holographic screen and the seat, separated by less than ten feet from Batman, who is busy making minor adjustments to the database. He may as well be another oxygen molecule.

The hum of the service fan and the low hiss from the disk tracks, the electronic alarm of the hardware as it initiates, the heartbeat of the Batman. Kal listens attentively to the black-clad vigilante’s human heart sound. There is an obvious difference between Batman’s heart rate and the many other people Kal has heard from before, such as the Green Lantern John, such as Lois—his heart beats more slowly than theirs, a gentle rhythm, steady and stable. He probably has special training; learning ways on how to strictly control his breathing, heartbeat, and emotions; let his body act as accurately as a good machine would, as much as possible. So he is different from Jon as well; Jon would react more, his heartbeat faster.

Jon, Red Hood Jon, a pickpocket from Gotham, a pawn for the mobs, an insignificant mortal.

“How long are you going to be standing there,” Batman suddenly growls, tearing apart the surreptitious atmosphere. He uses his gloved hand—or rather, spreading his obsidian claws—to pull at the void, a new holographic screen appears; the contents on it detailed and in high definition, opened to several windows, something that involves a thermography and a couple data tables.

Kal let out a breath like a man; he shouldn’t be marveled yet inwardly, he stands in awe. Technology. A gorgeous magic. Batman should’ve been born a sorcerer, an artist, a performer.

“If you have nothing to say, I suggest you return when it is your shift. Now is mine,” the modern-day sorcerer says offhandedly, with his back towards him. Still in that low guttural grunt, like the man is addicted to talking in threats.

Kal crosses his arms, still floating in the air. “I think I can wait for you to finish up.”

“You better start talking, right now—” The Bat places both his hands onto the metallic armrests, sweeping the touch-pad. The hydraulic device initiates, issuing a minimum hissing noise, turning and elevating the throne. He sweeps at the screen twice more with his fingertip, adjusting his height, until he’s at eye level with Superman. He fixes his gaze on the humanoid extraterrestrial and raises his chin, “What do you want? —Clark Kent.”

Superman lands on the insulated floor panels with a thump. He can no longer keep up the Superman appearance, so he lets his arms fall, backing up a step incredulously like those who had been betrayed in stage plays. “W-What did you say?”

“Clark Kent, reporter from the Daily Planet in Metropolis; farm boy from Smallville, Kansas. Your father’s name is Jonathan Kent, and your mother is Martha Kent; due to your Kryptonian heritage, I concluded that they are just your adopted human parents who choose to keep your secret for years. You are raised by humans, masquerading as one within the human society and received formal education in the US; need me to recite your résumé or high school record, Superman?”

Batman is moving his lips, articulating in a tone a little gentler than his usual growl. But what he is saying is too cruel for Kal to bear… it’s a personal assault, undisguised and completely out of the blue. Superman had fantasized about the day they told each other their real identity; he had been convinced there would be such a day, when they could truly trust each other; after all, they are sincere and genuine when they face evil, yet they set up invisible walls to barricade against one another during peacetime? He had believed that one day Batman would take off the mask before him, and tell him about his past; it was a worthwhile fantasy, for both the career reporter and the career superhero. He respects the Batman, and has never scanned the ebony mask for the face underneath without permission. Kal believes superheroes would respect each other’s privacy, as such, people can tolerate camera drones everywhere within the Watchtower, but only if there is none in the private quarters.

Batman stepped over the line; he did it first, he destroyed something that should have stayed untouched.

“Hacking into a public high school level data terminal firewall is not something worth bragging about, Batman.” Superman takes another step back, but this time in disgust. He doesn’t want to be that close to this despicable man again, ever. His X-vision can’t penetrate the Dark Knight’s mask, more so, he can’t see through any part of the man’s body. Every piece of armor on that uniform is lined with lead. Okay, fine, figures. Of course Batman would be prepared for this.

But this is so unfair.

“No paid firewall is installed in the computers used by the schools in your town,” the Bat states, “Mr. Kent, I’d imagine you would come from someplace more unreal, like the Land of Oz; reality is often less interesting than one’s imagination it seems.”

Is that supposed to be a joke or just more boasting on his part? —Kal-El is screaming on the inside, using his iron fists to smash all those crazy unrealistic fantasies. Outside though, Superman just shrugs and deadpans, “Indeed.”

Now that his position is lower than Batman’s, he has to look upwards at that deviant who has garbed himself in an assortment of lead, a human who least resembles one in probably the whole world. He forces himself to maintain a level of dignity even under such unfavorable condition, and once again, Kal crosses his arms. “And your opinion on it?”

“Upbringing plays an indelible role in the formation of one’s values. You grew up as a human, in the psychological sense, you are no different from an ordinary human being at this stage—a type of ‘human-like mentality’ if you will, hmm? The human heart is very fragile, Kal.” Batman is looking at him in disdain.

His voice is becoming softer though… just a hallucination perhaps, a hallucination that belongs solely to Superman. That last statement in particular, Kal has reason to imagine it rich with emotion, because as he said it his heart rate changed the slightest bit. Whether he had meant for Superman to respond emotionally to his declaration or not, he had shaken himself first. So subtle, like the frantic flutter from the wings of a single butterfly.

Kal gazes up at Batman. Staring at him, ignoring him, ignoring his heartbeat, ignoring the fact that he could hear his heartbeat. This ability is his secret, no one in the Justice League knows. Now that nobody is actually honest with each other, there is no reason for him to further explain anything.

“Why were you looking for me,” Batman’s heart rate and voice has returned to his usual baseline, everything is back to normal. Of course he would be like that, talking in that malicious tone, a heart cold and precise like the sophisticated machines around him, though reliable.

“To apologize,” Superman answers, “for the other night, when I appeared suddenly.”

“Not so sudden. I know you were there, just didn’t foresee that you would intervene.” Batman nods, “I accept your apology. We change shifts in three hours, be on time.” His fingers are back on the touch screen, intending to turn the seat around.

“Wait,” Kal speeds up, a chromatic blur slashes through the air, until he is suspended between Batman and the monitor screen. “I wasn’t finished. Listen to me.”

The Bat tilts backward, his tense body relaxed as he leans into the padding specially designed to fit the streamlines of the human anatomy. His lips pursed together, pulling at a corner, “I know what you’re going to say—about what defines a superhero; about the boundaries, morals—you’ve said this multiple times, Superman.”

Kal’s mouth feels very dry, and he hasn’t even started talking yet. Of course, even it he _had_ been talking nonstop for half an hour, as a Kryptonian, he still shouldn’t feel the touch of human thirst. How did Batman put it again? — ‘human-like mentality’… so the Bat keeps reminding him, to always remember that he is not a human?

“Yes, I’ve told you once, I’ve told you a thousand times. We should educate people as beacons, as positive role models they can see for moral guidance and value, not vindictively threaten criminals into behaving.” Ah, he said it… Kal thinks, he said it. He knows it is silly, pointless; he knows what the outcome will be. He still said it, so he might as well finish it. “You break the legs of Gotham’s criminals. No law allowed you to do that. You are no better than the worst of them this way, Batman.”

And then they stare at each other. Neither of them spoke.

For ten seconds, Kal listens to Batman’s heartbeat. It goes a little faster. “Superman, you are mistaken on two things,” the vigilante whispers.

His heart rate slows down as he continues. “First of all, I’m not a superhero; I am just the correspondence between the Justice League and the sponsors, and a consultant.”

Kal is looking at him from across, the Kryptonian takes a deep breath. Another human behavior, he’d know he does not even require oxygen… ‘human-like mentality’ again, perfect, he was right.

“Secondly, I’m not the kind of good person you somehow believed I am. I’m just the last barrier standing between Gotham’s worst… and the rest.”

Having finished saying his part, the Bat holds out a hand to Superman—for a moment there Kal actually thought the hand is reaching for him, but it isn’t. It brushes pass his right arm, tapping the screen. Four or five brightly-lit holographic screens blink off, bursting like soap bubbles. This darkly robed magician.

“I’ll prove you wrong,” Kal inhales, using his front teeth to bit down on his full lips.

“What works in Metropolis will not work in Gotham,” Batman interlaces his slender fingers, placing his elbows on the armrests. “You’re blocking me, Mr. Kent.”

“Not in Metropolis, I’m doing it in Gotham.” Kal-El—Clark Kent puts his hands on his hips and floats a bit higher, “I found someone, in Gotham; I will guide him.”

Batman purses his lips and pulls at a corner, the second time that day. “That sounds fresh. With all due respect, Mr. Superman, your old friend Lex Luthor has not made any public appearance recently and nothing is heard from Lex Corp. There are rumors that he has gotten in touch with military industrialist Tony Stark, something I believe is more worthy of your attention.”

“No, I’m going to turn a Gotham criminal into a good man, you wait and see,” Kal is glaring with his cerulean blue eyes and speaking in an almost fervent tone, “I will guide him, but never interfere with what he chooses to do. Time will tell, Batman, and belligerently scaring people leads to nowhere.”

If what he notices is true, for a moment, Batman’s heartbeat speeds up to average rate shared by most human; like that of John, Lois, and Jon…

Kal hears what should’ve been a hoarse growl but in actuality is closer to a murmur. “… What did you expect to dig up in Gotham’s swampland? A mud loach? A street trash?”

There is no hostility in these words. In fact, Batman has been thwarted, thrown out of control, by the Kryptonian’s naïve good-nature. But the Clark Kent part within Kal-El is frankly infuriated by this monster’s callous attitude, and is feeling self-rejected for carrying any hope. Human-like mentality, indeed.

“I hope you would not interfere with my actions,” Superman says.

“Not interested,” Batman hisses, moving the seat and throwing himself back into the pile of data, all while resolutely ignoring the screen Superman is blocking.

 

 

 

 

* * *

 

**Translator's Notes**

[T4] The official name for the monitor room located at the center of the Watchtower.

  

_Monitor Womb, JL Watchtower - DC Universe Online_

 

 

 

 


	5. Chapter 5

Rhythmic thumping is coming down from the first floor panel and has been going on for some time. Since five o’clock early in the morning… or perhaps five thirty? Clark cannot be sure when he was roused from sleep on the couch. He could effectively tune out his superpowers when he was conscious, but if he was dead with fatigue, some part of his powers would manifest itself rather unpredictably, like an engine turning itself on in the middle of the night—come to think of it, that’s quite creepy.

And now he is dead tired. Gotham is an industrial city, pollution’s been a lasting issue since the previous century or even the one before that, the whole city is shrouded in thick smog year-around and without nearly enough sunshine. Clark needs to go to the beach or fly above the clouds for a ray of sunlight… but this’ll have to wait until noon or afternoon, not now. Jon might get back from ‘work’ any moment so he should stay in the house, in case that itinerant gets suspicious.

Jon left the basement at seven last night. They had just put together the new bed then. “Don’t follow me,” he had said aggressively, “unless you wanted to see me hacked to five pieces and lying in the ditch by tomorrow—”

Clark had raised his hands in the gesture of surrender, backed onto the couch and sat. Although he’d love to know what the punk had been up to all night. He had wanted to ask Batman a few more questions, of Python van Dessa’s gang, of Jon’s position in it. But he is woefully certain that the vigilante would reveal nothing. The man insists on solving Gotham’s problems the Gotham way, and keeping her secrets secret. Stubborn, and perplexingly so.

If he had been willing to let the Justice League solve these problems, things could’ve turned out better and brighter, the city effectually returned to her former glory, before the Great Depression. At least on the surface. They could even use technical means to disperse those polluting clouds—temporarily, within a certain time period.

Truthfully, he doesn’t know where to start. Just as he cannot control the noise coming from upstairs; at first it sounds like two people in a struggle, seizing anything at hand in a chaotic whirl; desks, chairs, even a cupboard—swear to God, Clark can hear the sound of dishes shaking and clinking together—like an earthquake, and also not. This building’s prefabricated panels are too thin, no soundproofing at all. It’s getting louder, those noises, mixing with a woman’s shrieks. As if the earthquake has abruptly turned into a murder.

Clark can guess what it is. He doesn’t want to listen, but one does not need any super-hearings to hear the full course. Directly over him, several meters away tops, a couple has started a morning exercise session on a whim.

Jon had said they are Mr. Hanson Schlom and his wife, taxi driver and seamstress, and they would both leave home around six in the morning for their jobs. But Jon omitted to mention that they would wake just pass five for sex, and apparently using the entire rental house as a warzone.

Mrs. Schlom has a good voice, soprano, and she cries out whenever her man pierces into her. The woman’s shrill so earsplitting, Clark thought she has been stabbed by an actual knife for a second. They return to their bed eventually, the mattress creaks, the four bedposts slam onto the floor at rushed intervals. Mr. Kent starts pacing in a circle downstairs with nowhere to hide, before finally throwing himself on the bed and grabs at two pillows to cover his ears.

“I thought you said the bed is mine, you sleep on the couch.” Just then, the basement door is rudely flung open from the other side—perhaps kicked open. Jon stands there, the cap and hood held firmly down, and smells of early morning chills and beer.

“Oh!” Clark sits up, as if there is a tightened puppet string attached to the back of his neck. “You… Good morning!” His glasses are hanging off the tip of his nose, hair in a mess, and his spirit is falling apart. He stares hard with his crystal bead-like blue eyes, piercingly, his expression innocent but on the verge of a breakdown. He looks straight at the owner of the bed.

Then he stands, a pillow held in his hands, as he straightens the crumpled sheets. His movements rigid like a manikin. “Ah, yes, the bed is yours, I just borrowed it.”

“Without my permission.” Jon’s hands are in his pockets; he takes two steps forward and closes the door with a push of his shoulder.

The closer he came, the more this room smells of alcohol, Clark can’t help but wonder if he had poured a whole bottle of beer directly over his head. Once he sees the man’s face properly, he is sure of one thing: even if the man did have a bottle of beer poured over his head, it is done so by others, and without the approval of Jon himself.

His expression is ugly enough to be the Batman—okay, that’s a bad example; but that is the first thought that fizzes like foam into Clark Kent aka Superman Kal-El’s woozy brain.

The second thought is: this type of foul mood is a Gotham specialty.

Jon limps over, bleary-eyed and pale. Clark is still staring. “Move over,” Jon points at the couch, “I’m going to bed.”

“You should take a shower first,” Clark says him in a dreamy trance.

It’s a good suggestion. Jon’s face is still stained with ashes from the previous night. The man has ways to make himself tallow-smeared and unpresentable, must be a skill. Clark remembers how he’d preached the guy into washing his face before leaving just yesterday evening, but by now clearly come to naught.

Jon frowns, taking off his hood and baseball cap, before exhaustedly pulling at his old coat. “I don’t have any shower gel, nor shampoo.”

“There’s soap in the public washroom,” Clark reminds him.

“Nope, Mrs. White’s cat probably ate it last night.” The punk yawns, so exaggerated it could have dislocated his jaw, and strikes his chest with a gloved hand.

Clark doubts any cat would eat soaps, but he doesn’t say. He does not want to step on any more landmines. He didn’t get anything worthwhile from Jon yesterday, and has gotten a bucket full of icy water from Batman. What did his adoptive father, Jonathan ‘hailed from the cornfield of Smallville, Kansas’ Kent used to say? —All beginnings are hard.

God, this is just the beginning.

Clark sighs, chucking the pillow onto the sofa and drags over his traveler bag, to take out two disposable a small packages from a plastic bag.

“Hey,” Jon uses his teeth to bit the edge of his glove, peeling it off his hand as if he is actually shedding a layer of skin. Carelessly, and with traces of wicked humor, he asks, “Condoms? Yooo, going to blow your horn so early in the morning?”

Clark ignores him; he knows this guy is deliberately trying to stir him up. He throws the small packages at the Gotham hellion. “Shower gel and shampoo! What else you need?”

Jon stares at the silly long packages that actually looked kind of like condoms, spits out his glove, and sneers, “I don’t have a towel, either.”

“You’ve got to be joking.”

“I hung it in the bathroom. The cat ate it.”

“Fine,” Clark is positive now, Jon is doing it on purpose. He sighs again, pulls his own towel from the bag as well and throws it over. “Seriously, I want to know that cat.”

Gloves, coat, dirty pair of old socks; Jon piles them all at the foot of the bed, on the floor, then unblushingly picks up Clark’s towel and Clark’s bathing gels. He uses his lovely white teeth to tear at a corner of a small package, eyes full of antagonism as he stares at the reporter in the face.

As the package ripped, Mrs. Schlom from upstairs let out a final echoing moan; sharp, high-pitched, resounding, ecstatic.

Opposite from Jon, Clark turns in a panic to the sofa, but he then start digging into the couch cushions in a mad search for something.

“What’re you looking for?” Jon asks, in a voice halfway between actual fatigue and deliberate indolence.

“The recorder—ah! Here!” Clark has put himself back together once he turns around; though his hair is still a mess, at least his glasses is straightened and expression a lot calmer. “I’m guessing you’re planning on sleeping all day, so I’d better hurry up with my interview.” He holds the voice recorder high like holding a torch in some ghastly cave—pressing the record button, he starts with his questions in a rush, “Can you tell me about your childhood, Jon? Pick anything you want to say.”

Jon stands, he is wearing filthy jeans and black long-sleeved T-shirt with frayed cuffs, Clark’s towel sling over a shoulder and in his hands clutched Clark’s bathing gel and shampoo. He limps away like he owns the place. “I have no childhood.”

Clark stands quickly and follows after him, still holding the recorder. “Fine, change of question; tell me anything about yourself between the age of five and twelve. Anything that left an impression on you?”

“… Pa and Ma died.”

“Huh? You mean—”

“My father and my mother, dead,” Jon comes to an abrupt stop, half-turns around to snarl. “Fuck, _dead_ dead, the permanent not-coming-back-ever kind, understood?”

This is not a suitable place to talk about this. They are standing in the hallway leading to the first floor from the basement, nobody turned on the lights, and it is pitch-black as far as the eye can see.

Clark cannot tell Jon he can actually see his face, the expression he is wearing. This is a privilege no ordinary human possess. He cannot tell him, I can see your pain is real. He can hear his heartbeat, knowing he is emotional. He appreciates his honesty in this very moment, and suddenly he feels guilty. These are what he cannot say, but it’s not all.

There is one other thing he has to keep silent—earlier, when Jon opened the door without warning, when he sat up and opened his eyes, tired as he was, his X-vision got a little out of control.

He saw Jon standing naked in front of him.

He saw his human flesh; upfront, ivory, bare; every curl of hair, every piece of solid muscle, and the entangled pulsating vessels. Jon would not know, but Clark has been staring at him. He couldn’t seem to be able to switch back to his normal vision, and he didn’t know if it was a conscious decision on his part or he was just too tired. Either way, he did what he shouldn’t have done.

He also saw plenty of bruising and old scars upon Jon’s body; even if he overlooked the wound that is of course on his left calf, there is still a large contusion located just under his right armpit. It was caused by a direct blow from a blunt object, perhaps related to his dishonorable work. No one who led a happy and decent life would have so many unknowable scars.

That didn’t stop his body from being aesthetically pleasing in the general sense; for a human, Jon is in terrific shape, anyone would agree if they could get a glimpse. How did the thugs put it? Gal or guy, they’d do him… yes, indeed.

Clark can still see the bruise on his upper right abdomen in his mind’s eyes, and damn its location. Ah, like some demented artistic genius had taken this beautiful body as a canvas, and had spilled rampantly the most gruesome of details to create a perversion of a masterpiece—down its sides, along the slim waist; Jon’s waistline, his looming abs, flexible and breathtaking. Clark had watched him come closer, sat, and torn at the edge of that small packaging with his teeth… for a moment he had lost his breath, not from the lack of oxygen, but from something very similar to human desires.

Fuck. Why now… human-like mentality…

He can only stand there, silent, under the embrace of blackness. Gotham’s shadow is a living creature, meanders and encroaches in every corner. Both of them mere preys in its belly, lonesome and motionless.

Clark observes Jon’s profile. Still so decadent and hapless, yet in his eyes is a spark that belongs only to carnivorous predators. “You should not follow me,” he said coldly.

“… I’m sorry,” the reporter hears himself whisper, the sound merges the umbra with his double layers of guilt, preserved faithfully in the voice recorder held tightly in his hand.

 

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Life’s getting busy again, so I wouldn’t be able to update as often in the future, I apologize in advance.


	6. Chapter 6

Wonder Woman Diana sees Superman standing by himself on the vast-expanse of the topmost level of the Watchtower. The large floor-to-ceiling reinforced shield opened a slit, like the narrowing of a Titan Giant’s eye. Superman is standing beneath the second layer of the crystal shield, like the single blue pupil of that a one-eyed beast’s. He holds his arms across his chest, feet planted on the floor, eyes leveled into the depths of space.

“Kal,” the Amazon Princess flies to land behind the Last Son of Krypton, lissome as a swallow, “I have something to ask of you.”

Kal nods, letting go of his arms. “Had Batman said something to you?”

The Princess holds her hands behind her back, drawing a circle on the floor with the heel of her long boot. “Oh, him? He did not say anything.” She tilts her head to a side; thick raven hair poured like waterfall over her shoulders, wheat-colored skin glistened as if rubbed in holy olive oil. A natural vibrant luster exudes from her person, full of a divine beauty.

She tilts her head, thinking, “Uh, if announcing the scheduling table can count as said something—then yes, he said something to me, Kal.”

“I see, the consultant,” Kal muttered with the standard Midwestern English.

Diana is puzzled. She mightn’t have heard the word, or she did but doesn’t understand its meaning. Sure enough, she repeats it mechanically, blotching the pronunciation. “Consultant?”

“The position Bats given to himself,” Kal explains, “He help solve technical problems, or provide working ideas, and we follow his advices to get things done. Consultant is just a noun, that’s just what he does.” He ignores the other major part where being a consultant also means ‘not belong within the team.’ If he told Diana that, it’ll take him longer to explain to her why Batman doesn’t just join them, why he always isolated himself; why even when everyone consciously sees him as their own, he still chooses to obsess over this small bureaucratic problem.

What’s worst, the Princess would fervently consider starting an immediate meeting to include Batman officially into the League, or else to exclude him completely. For her the concept of right and wrong is as clear-cut as the black stones and white stones on Mount Olympus, millenniums cannot dissolve their molecules into one another. She does not understand nor recognize any form of ‘intermediate state.’

Sometimes Kal thinks too few people in this world share this worldview with Diana; other times, he feels it is better that so few people are like her.

The human heart is passionate, ambiguous, contradictory, and fragile. Kal can’t help but think as he takes in a deep breath, before exhaling it heavily. Human-like behavior, human-like mentality. Fuck him.

“You know, Kal, he is responsible for the scheduling this month,” Diana grinds into the floor with a heel, “but I think a mistake were made concerning the timetable. The balance… I mean, our duties should be impartially distributed, and to allow everyone equal time for rest and recreation.”

Kal nods, “Of course. If he’d given you extra shifts, it’s entirely possible somebody else has duties to attend to. You can always ask him the reason yourself. Believe me, Batman is very sensitive about the ‘fairness’ of things. We should trust him, Diana.”

Unexpectedly, the Princess taps a slender finger right at the ‘S’ on his chest, and with considerable force. “It is you, Kal,” she says, “not me. He has doubled your monitor shifts from last month.”

“… Okay,” Superman hesitates for two seconds, before shrugging his broad shoulders, “I said he’s very sensitive about the ‘fairness’ of things.” His tone is no longer so sure though, and for a moment there his expression falls headlong into Clark’s territory. It is fortunate the Princess does not know any Clark’s.

“You will feel tired, Kal. I believe you have done more than your fair share, it is time you get a proper rest,” Diana replies, holding out the hand previously hidden behind her back. Kal sees she is holding an apple.

This is amusing—he can’t help but smile—I’m drifting between the stars, talking to a goddess, and she is holding a fruit that belongs to Earth.

“I understand, I will take care to look after myself. By the way, where did this come from?” Kal points at the explicitly ordinary apple, “Did Paris[5] awarded it to you?

“I get it from the storeroom; the staffs there use it to make juice.”

“Never could have imagined there are whole fruits in the Watchtower, only a variety of juices.”

The Princess takes a bite, chewing in earnest. “It tastes great,” she says, “Truly. You should try some, Kal.”

Kal believes Diana is doubtlessly the only one around here who can do things such as chewing apples in such a serious fashion. Perhaps with Batman as the sole exception, but he rarely does anything mundanely human-like in front of a fellow Justice League member. Even drinking coffee is limited to sips. The situation for the Princess is very different from how it is for the Bat after all, as she did not originate from this secular world and many things are new experience for her. Kal can imagine how the sculpture of a goddess would look while holding an apple and wearing a mysterious smile, but not everyone has the opportunity to see a real goddess partaking food in such a carefree manner.

“I think I need to go rescue a few before they end up in the blender,” Kal smiles as he elevate, raising two fingers to gesture at Diana.

A pilot salute. Learned from Jon.

“See you,” he says.

An hour later, he is ready to leave the Watchtower with a bag full of apples.

This is also a new experience for Kal. He, Superman, has taken ten apples from the solitary storeroom on the Watchtower, protected in a special anti-eradiation packaging and held carefully in his arms, to return to the basement he shared with a bum.

The whole thing is extremely absurd, if the Batman knew he would think that he has been mind-controlled and thus has the Martian J’onn perform emergency measures to directly scan his brain. Thank God, surveillance equipment didn’t seem to be installed in the storage rooms.

Yet, every detail of this ridiculous escapade has made him inexplicably excited; this has to be that human-like mentality again, though Kal could not care less. He hasn’t had this type of experience in a long time, and the last incidence was when he last saw Lois upon a rooftop. Perhaps he shouldn’t have met Lois then; perhaps a Kryptonian shouldn’t have fallen in love with a human; just as Superman shouldn’t have run off with apples from the Watchtower. Yet, he is thrilled and elated, by all of these.

Lois Lane eventually broke up with Clark Kent. Hopefully, this bag full of apples can have a better outcome.

The authentication scan completed, the security hatch leading into the internal halls of the Watchtower firmly closed and the external entrance for takeoff slowly opens. The final hangar gates slide aside, instantly, the freezing temperature of outer space causes the temperature of this compartment to plummet. Kal looks down, right opposite from the exit, amid the solid sheet of black, that water-clear planet is rotating in solitude.

He leaps out, the gates closing behind him in a loud clang[T5]. He stops his buoyancy and let himself naturally freefall, shooting through the atmosphere. The wind begins to blow, the air circulation pulling at his cape in the opposite direction of his speeding descend. It flaps, like a single torn wing of a fallen angel, but it cannot slow down his fall. Kal folds up his arms as air friction causes him to start burning, flame slices an orange hue into the clouds, and a smile quietly climbs up the corner of his mouth.

This is something he cannot share with anyone, that he never felt like he is descending at times like this… but falling. So often, he falls into the corners of this world. Today is in Gotham, if he smashed through a rooftop as he fall, Batman would probably nail him to a wall with his batarangs. This mean his falling journey has to be shortened, so he applies the brake as soon as he reaches Gotham’s heavy clouds.

The last part of the trip is the most exhilarating, as he will land amid the 23rd Street district where the population is dense, and he has to maintain above a certain speed to remain unobserved. Pick a narrow alley, such as the one behind Jon’s rented home. There is nothing but garbage and trashcans, is off the beaten track, and has a window that he can climb through into the building without anyone noticing. Kal took off during lunchtime there once, from above the trashcan. He felt that was the most memorable take off experience in his life—memorable in the worst sense of course.

He lands successfully. That old window is really still wide-open, so he makes his way through, flying straight into the bathroom. A few seconds later, reporter Clark walks out, holding a bag full of apples and typing on the phone. Might be a little unusual, but no one would think superhero or crossdressing perverts.

He really _is_ on the cell phone. He is calling for Lois. He needs to hear a familiar voice after the second landing-on-the-trash experience of his life.

The background is very noisy, the ringing of the phone intertwining with the differing pitch of people’s voices, the usual chaos of the Daily Planet building. Everything is normal. With a few noted exceptions—Jimmy, and Lois—most colleagues don’t often notice whether Clark Kent is still sitting at his desk.

Of course there is a person certainly does noticing his absence now. His editor.

“… about Perry… I don’t know how to… uh, what? Yes… I know he doesn’t approve of this… well, I know this is a stupid idea, but… ah, right… no, no, no, Lois, that’s not possible…” Clark holds the apples as he lean against the basement door, phone tucks against his head, a hand groping for the keys in his pockets. It’s all rather embarrassing really.

The signal is not very good, Lois’s voice is getting small and is drowned by the noise.

“How is your Gotham holiday, Smallville?” She is obviously busy typing, multitasking. “… I’m filing Stark Industries’ business trades in the recent decade… lots of technical terms, it’s making my brain hurt. By the way, Perry came wanting to give me that interview…probably felt Bruce Wayne would be more willing to see people like me… but personally I felt Tony Stark is more newsworthy… rumor has it that he wanted to join the Department of Defense, absurd, huh? But not totally impossible… I’ll say, you have to hold on, Clark… people around here is saying that Boss is contacting Wayne’s personal assistant, fixing you a new opportunity, letting you attend one of his parties; perhaps Wayne would like a taste of the other team… okay, I don’t mean that.”

She puts down the phone and says a few words to the person next to her, before she returns, declaring in a relatively happier tone, “The good news is, your reimbursement arrival tomorrow—something from the grapevines.”

Clark still did not find that damn key. He leans against the door, practically moaning into the phone like his dying breath, “… from all the messages, I like this one most, Lois. Bye. I miss yo—”

But Lois has hung up on that end. She probably did not hear the last sentence. Clark feels a sudden onslaught of fatigue, worse than he’d been prior to the phone call even. A familiar sense of misery begins to haunt him, more pronounced than when he was alone drifting at that far corner of the universe. He is there, standing in the middle of a narrow walkway, this dying building is holding its breath as an indiscernible weight is laid over his shoulders. He stands in the darkness of the underground, plastering his forehead over the moldy grimy door like a human being, all the while willing himself to relax through sheer willpower just so the cell won’t be crushed in his hand.

But even his final support abandons him as the doorknob rattles, the wooden door-panel swinging inward. Clark staggers and almost falls, the bag slants, thus the apples roll out one by one. Superman could use his super-speed to catch those naughty fruits before any touched the ground, but unfortunately Clark can only watch on stupidly as they tumbled down and down.

A hand shoots out, savoring one, before rubbing it on a pair of jeans. “Hey, don’t tell me you’ve been out all afternoon only to buy these shitty stuffs! What are they? Just apples?” Jon is standing right inside the door, wearing his twin layers of hat and hood and a hand over the door-handle. He has heavy circles under his eyes, apparent from a lack of sleep. He bites into the fruit. “It really is an apple.”

“… Space apples,” Clark adds under his breath, “Authentic ones, too.”

“Damn, you seriously believed in that?” the crook huffs, shaking his hand as he takes two successive bites. “Talks about ‘seeds cultivated in space’ and ‘soilless cultivation on grafted vegetables’? And then sell you an apple the price of turkeys!”

Anger. Unprovoked and irrational. Cynical, full of resent. The inevitable sufferings of a human being who had nothing. They believe in the Number of the Beast[6], believe in Armageddon, believe in sunspot causing God to bleed; but they do not believe in space farming and soilless cultivation of grafted vegetables. If it rained acid today, it was due to pollution caused by capitalist sweatshops, by government’s connivance.

“Soilless cultivation and vegetable grafting are real, but are two different techniques. I have to tell you, I grew up in a farm—” Clark says as he move a pace forward, but his foot steps right onto an apple, a space apple, just _great_. Immediately it causes him to stumble, taking him half-a-second as he hesitates whether to actually fall down or not, since that would require him to wash an extra shirt.

But this time he misses the chance the complete the final act of ‘clumsy Mr. Reporter,’ as before he had actually-fallen-over or not-fallen-over, Jon braces him with his open arms.

“I really should’ve just let you so a face-plant…” Jon rudely complains, though he is holding Clark rather firmly, with a hand reaching under the reporter’s armpit and over the small of his back.

The hand empty of any apple is plastered on Clark’s back, allowing the noncitizen to fell the warm touch of human flesh. The reporter shuts his eyes, in a grimace, as if he is trying to resist something. The thief does not look at him.

“I am really… truly… sorry,” Clark straightens himself, looking distressingly at the floor full of fruits. “… Sorry.”

This angered Jon. He stretches his injured leg as he struggles to bend down to collect the scattered apples, foul languages spewing out of his mouth in increasingly furious tone, “Apology, apology, apology! You are always fucking apologizing! Fuck your apologies! This fucking world is the one that needs to apologize, you owe shit to no one! Fuck! If you said sorry again—”

Clark crouches before the smaller man, looking up at him; the blue eyes behind his glasses are overflowing with unstated frustration. “I’m sorry. I… for my own sake, my own reasons, I disturbed your life. Jon, I’m truly sorry for this.”

“…” Jon buries his face into his free hand, for a while, before rubbing at it for a few times—it seems to Clark that he would like to rub off a couple layers of his skin. He puts down his hand, violently, still boiling with excessive anger.

“Get into the room,” he shoots out, “and get your fucking recorder.”

Clark sits there and groans, “Listen Jon, you can’t mess with my recorder. It’s new…”

Jon plugs the leftover apple directly into his wide-gaping mouth. “Where were we this morning? … My uncle raised me, he never beat me and he never scolded me, he made great chocolate chip cookies and delicious coffee, he even provided for me to go to college but I dropped out in my sophomore year… Fuck! Why are you still sitting there? I only have an hour before I have to go to work!”

 

 

 

 

* * *

 

**Author's Notes**

[5] The Trojan prince, the son of Priam and Hecuba. Appointed by the gods to decide who among the three goddesses Hera, Athena, and Aphrodite should win the prize for beauty, the Golden Apple of Discord. He awarded it to Aphrodite, thus sparking a vanity-fueled dispute amongst the goddesses that eventually led to the Trojan War.

[6] Revelation 13:18— “Here is wisdom. Let him that hath understanding count the number of the beast: for it is the number of a man; and his number is Six hundred threescore and six.”

 

**Translator's Notes**

[T5] How Kal can hear in space is explained in more detail in the author’s other work ULTRAS. Basically, he does not hear through sound waves as humans do, but through electromagnetic waves that _can_ travel through vacuum.

 

 

 

 


	7. Chapter 7

When Jon goes out, he encounters young Dennis just as he crawls out from his house window.

The boy is lying flat on his tummy on a small balcony that’s barely big enough to fit in him, as well as two pots and a shoe rack, and his two skinny little arms are hanging outside the railings. He is a pretty little thing, eight years old, and has inherited his mother’s pale gold hair.

His mother Alice is only 25 this year. Jon met her twice; she should be a stunner and at the peak of her beauty, yet she has seemed faded and lackluster. She always told her neighbors she was a social worker at the hospital, but that’s not true, as he has met her twice at the seedy dive bar down by the Old Gotham district outskirt. Once she was kneeling and sucking on the dick of some lowlife. They were doing it right outside the toilet; the guy was Jon’s acquaintance and he had waved hello as he climaxed, ripping into the woman’s golden hair and boomed, “She’s going to bite it right off, the bitch!”

Jon had felt like he’d just taken a bath in alcohol; he had rushed into the washroom to throw up, and all he could see in his mind were Dennis’s kitten-like eyes. He and his mom now live with his stepfather Luke Samuel. He is a young alcoholic, able-bodied but a complete loafer. All he does all day is eat, drink, and beating up his wife and stepson. Whenever young Dennis lies on the balcony, Jon knows there is more drama in his household; it’s routine, repeating itself every other day. Now Dennis has learned to lock up the window from the outside, lest his stepfather follow out to beat him with that imposing stick also.

Jon sees Dennis lying there today, disheveled, and has obviously been hurt already. He reaches into his pockets and looks up to greet the boy, “Den! Den!"

“Hey, buddy, it’s you,” that eight-year-old responds, perching over the old-fashioned railings. “You sure look high-spirited.”

“So-so. I’ll say, what’re you doing there? Waiting for Batman?” Jon retrieves a hard piece from his backpocket and clutches it tightly in his hand, contemplating on how to throw it to Dennis

A plastic batarang toy. A stupid, silly little thing.

Dennis sticks a finger to his lips mysteriously. “Hush!” he whispers in a not-very-quiet tone, “I’ve seen the Batman. He’s real… I mean, he’s not a ghost or anything. I’ve seen him, Jon buddy, he really exists, and he has a gigantic pair of wings that can take him anywhere.”

“… Sounds cool,” Jon replies, “I’m getting jealous of you, pal.”

That kid interlaces his fingers and touches both hands to his mouth, before speaking like some professional spiritual channeler, “He was chosen by God.”

“He’s no angel though… uh, Den, I—I mean angels aren’t as cool as he is…” Red Hood Jon stammers, standing stiffly below the balcony.

“Jon,” the spirit-channeling child stares at the hobo with kitten-like pupils, “If I keep on being a good boy, God will choose me like He chose Batman… and I hope one day, Batman will help me get that scum Luke and lock him in Arkham forever.”

Jon doesn’t remember how he get away from Dennis that day, only that in the end he did not give away the little present to its future owner, but rather returned the toy back into his pocket. He limps away slowly, passes one alleyway after another, through the Colombian district and the Italian settlement. He makes toward the Eastend Park as he drag his leg along. He admits that he is somewhat distracted, from lack of sleep or from something else. He stops on occasion, squinting as he looks up, seeking between the fluttering clothes and tangled wires for something unnamed.

The night fog above Gotham is as solid as the stone walls of ancient Babylon, there’s little light even under the shine of a full moon and he can find nothing with the naked eye. But what does it matter, there is an eighty percent chance he is being watched.

He is going to a bar called Skull Bay Blue, it sits close to the Eastend Park. Python van Dessa usually looked for new blood and allocated work assignment there; as well as distribute marijuana, heroin, and GHB[7]. The bar is located near the center of the Chelsea District, close to the sea, and easy to smuggle in goods from the pier. It is surrounded by motels and taverns under van Dessa’s control, convenient for them to drug schoolgirls gullible as lambs with spiked wine or from the pinprick of a needle, before allowing their regular customers to feast upon.

The cops at GCPD have been keeping an eye on this place, but people still break the law right under Jim Gordon’s nose. Not to mention, van Dessa is too often regarded as a genius, he hides well and few has seen his face; after the death of Carmine Falcone, he took over the drug trades and human trafficking of the whole East Gotham, and he made sure the two businesses stood independent from each other, with little interaction between the people he used for either. He has a lot of folks working as pimps and many more to distribute his white powder, but none in the gang is a nigger. Also, he does not allow his own people to do drugs. Jon had suspected he might be a neo-Nazi enthusiast, and was considerably obsessed with bullshit like spiritual purity.

Jon walks to the Eastend Park gates. Across the street in a corner is flashing blue neon light arranged in the shape of a skull and surrounded by pink and yellow pentagrams. All the star-shaped lights have a tip pointing towards the front entrance of the bar, as the door itself isn’t lit at all.

Jon wipes at the sides of his hood before sticking his hands into his pockets again, all the while limping his way across the street. At that street corner distinctively absent of the brightness of any neon signs is a large billboard shrouded in shades; two tall men of Aryan descent conceal themselves behind it and subsequently nod at Jon when they see him come closer. “Good evening, brother.”

Jon returns the nod, but he doesn’t speak. The two bodyguards are mysterious; they wear old Air Force trousers and white wife-beaters no matter the season, with military dog tags around their necks, and their arms are always exposed, deliberately showing off their tattoos. Jon took notice of course, before finally making out the tattoo on one's left arm are the Chinese characters ‘I trigram be endure silk’[T6]; Jon ended up puzzling over it for quite some time before realizing the words that the man originally wanted was probably ‘I want to be a ninja.’[T6] From that day forward, he completely lost the ability to speak in front of that man, because he’s afraid he would burst into uncontrollable laughter the moment he open his mouth, and then get crushed into dust by this bear of a man who wanted to be a ninja.

The obscure doorway leading to the bar is rather tiny, not even large enough to fit in a door-panel with a lock. Inside is a hallway five meters in length, and where the manic music is coming from at odd intervals; outside the street is silent as the dead, with the occasional ghostly shadow of men drifting by.

At the end of the hallway is another hallway; there is light to the left, leaking through a sheet of silver curtain. Several people is standing by the wall, puffing up smoke and forcing everyone else to have to see through the cloud of haze they caused. One of them pats Jon on the shoulder, a silly boy who has dyed his hair deep blue, calling out, “Jonny Baby! Looks like the Batman let you off the hook this time!”

The man’s name is Charles, also one of van Dessa’s. Jon tells a couple harmless jokes without removing the arm around his shoulder. A chick comes in from another room, click-clacking on four-inch stilettos sharp enough to be needles. And as she walks pass them, basically stabbing into the floor with her blade-like heels, they get the chance to take advantage of her sweet behind in turn with a slap. She pinches Jon on the cheek, “Honey, you’ve lost weight. You should eat more.” Jon couldn’t recall her name.

He doesn’t linger as he continues on, pushing aside the colloidal silvery curtains to throw himself figuratively into the gapping mouth of the skull.

The flashing of psychedelic light blinds him for a second, the disco music roaring like thunder. Jon shuts his eyes to adapt, and already a flirty smile is on his lips. He pulls out his hands and raises them high, limping as he sways, tangling himself with the rest of the idiots on the dance floor. Nobody cares that in his pocket is a brazen batarang made of plastic. Chances are gods who could stand between clouds would have a hard time making out who anyone really is in that particular moment, even if said god has X-vision.

“Jonny! Come here, Jonny!” A chick sitting on a bar stool next to the counter waves him over. Jon knows she is only fourteen years old, dressed in a skimpy black fishnet skirt that leaves nothing to the imagination and a fake gemstone hung low around her neck. People would not believe she is only fourteen, due to the amount of makeup she has had on; lips scarlet like freshly spilled blood, with a dash of metallic powder, and eyes painted with rings of blue eyeliner; her acrylic nails are golden, long, and sharp. One would believe she is fourteen only when they see her shoulders, skinny as a boy’s, and yet to fill out the mature curve of a woman’s.

Purple lamp flashes on the counter she is leaning against, its light refracts through the wineglass in her hand and flickers on Jon’s face. He squints, for a moment his thought goes to Alice, and then flits to a certain goddess he know. This deceitful contrast makes him shudder, yet he still obeys the summoning; dragging his feet, rocking his hips, a smile decisively on his face. They told him she is one of van Dessa’s girls; they called her Maria.

“Baby,” she coos. She is sitting upright on her high chair, toes some ways off the floor and legs swinging, so innocently, as if she is at another school playground rather than at this sordid hell. She reaches out to caress Jon on the hood, saying in a husky voice, “I’ve been watching you for a while, and now we finally touched, hmm?”

She sounds like a forty-year-old though. Must be the result of her excessive intake of alcohol and tobacco. There are prick marks and bruising from needles on the arm she wear alloy bracelets. Jon takes the arm firmly in one hand.

And then uses his nose to touch the back of her hand, lips pecking lightly on her cool smooth skin. “Your highness,” he quirks a corner of his mouth.

Maria throws back her head and laughs, arching her delicate little neck, so pale and fragile; she must’ve believed it alluring. “You tickled me, bad boy,” she bursts into a round of renewed laughter, compressing her shoulders in his direction and deliberately squeezing her tiny apple-like breasts. “The boss wants to meet you.”

“Where is he?” Jon has never met him, Python van Dessa. A lot of rumors though, and he has a knack for picking out truths from a pile of exaggerated rubbish. Python van Dessa, like Carmine Falcone, is another product of declining society; another sallow legend of a Gotham generation. People lie for them when they are in power, yet all lies turn to meaningless dust the moment they are replaced.

“He could be anywhere, boy. If he wants to see you, I think you’ll find yourself before him soon enough.” Maria acts like all those mature dames, gently shaking her glass. Whisky and tonic, its color is like lemonade. After all, is a glass of lemonade not what is needed for her young age?

“There he is! Hey! Little Red Riding Hood! Jon! Jonny—over here!” Charles’s voice rings out by the doorway then. Jon is somewhat annoyed; he shouldn’t be interrupted now, at _this_ particular time. Once he turns to take a look however, his annoyance officially upgraded into frustration.

That dunce! —with the two bodyguards from outside standing to either side and using a painful technique popular among army ranks to twist his arms, that dimwitted blockhead is being frog marched right in! Charles cups his mouth and calls out to him all the way from the doorway, then gestures at their huge prize, shouting, “Jonny, over here! Is this yours? He said he know you!”

Jon sure recognizes Clark Kent. Baggy jeans, thick overcoat, pair of basketball shoes; a small-time reporter with his accursed black-rimmed glasses on his high nose—he is even trying to grin at that kid Charles through his grimace.

Jon is still holding Maria’s hand. A street trash, holding the hand of a child prostitute, still flirting. He spares a glance at Clark before turning back, fixing his gaze on that pale delicate little hand, sighing with a note of melancholy. “Honey, I really wanted to say I don’t know that guy.”

 

 

Clark sees Red Hood Jon walking towards him. Red, blue, yellow, purple, white; lights dance and whirl around his silhouette, a blurring flashing spectacle. The crook’s face is covered by the shade cast by his hat, his expression hidden and unclear.

A solid black figure, ominous like Death; brooding, tottering along, unhurried. He has the hood and is faceless, all that’s missing is the grim reaper’s scythe. The disco ball at the middle of the bar is a blue skull; it rotates, plating him with a sparkling layer of the night. He is an elusive phantom, even though he lacked a cowl and pointed ears.

Clark rolled his eyes. There’re two “rhinos” twisting his arms, probably attempting to make him cry like a little girl, but the truth is, this level of muscle tension is not going to cause him any pain. Nevertheless, he still cries out, because that’s what is expected to happen. He wriggles, cries, begs for mercy; twisting his facial muscles unnaturally. That smile must be pathetic. There is no mirror for him to check his expression at the moment, but judging from the frown Jon is wearing, he probably just earned himself a Golden Razzie for his acting chops.

The drumming of the music beat is loud, the vibration as if strong enough to shatter a human’s sternum; the ambience is psychedelic, the people macabre. Jon draws closer, shoving away madmen who bump into him along the way—freaks who squander their youth. He approaches the doorway, throwing his left arm over Clark’s shoulder.

“Let him go, brothers, this one’s mine,” Jon announces.

“He had this,” one of the bodyguards holds up something card-like in his hand. It’s the journalist pass, they must’ve searched his body the moment they caught him.

A journalist pass is akin to a free ticket straight to hell in a place like Skull Bay Blue, playing second fiddle only to the golden shield[8]. The latter has another nickname in East Gotham, called the first class ticket, nonstop to Heaven. Cops generally believed there is a Heaven.

Jon plucks the press card from the man with two fingers. “He has to eat.” He throws an arm around Clark’s neck, holding him so hard as if he could strangle him with an embrace—as if he was an ordinary man. “Let him go, he’s not here to snoop. You see, cops don’t carry the shield if they went undercover and snooping reporters don’t bring the pass. There’s no fun in sending greenhorns like this packing, never mind the ticket. And he’s mine, so let go.”

The two burly men look to each other, apparent that it is somewhat difficult for them to fully comprehend Jon’s logic. A minute later, the one who wanted to be a ninja first releases his held, “You have to explain. He followed you here, brother.”

Clark feels Jon squeezing him tighter, and he starts to struggle. The other bodyguard lets him go, slapping him hard on the shoulder. “Aw!” Clark clings to Jon’s arm as he cries out, feigning pain.

“He’s my baby cousin.” Jon loosens his held, but does not release him, “His Pa raised us up together. The old man has a small fucking house and a small fucking farm out west, if it wasn’t for him those properties would be fucking mine.”

Charles barks out into laughter, jabbing none-too-gently at Clark on the back and drawing out a few protesting yaps. “All the more reason for you to throw him in the Gotham sewers to feed the crocs, baby; the damn gutters really _do_ have that kind of stuff, uh?” The man looks overjoyed, yet Clark has little clue as to what is so funny.

“Nope,” Jon chuckles. This is the first time Clark heard him actually laugh, genuine and unrestrained, rather than a sneer or ridicule. He is smiling as he says, “He’s been letting me fuck his little ass since twelve, won’t do for me to lose him.” And then Jon really turns to give him a solid peck on the cheek. “My dear cousin,” he says gently.

“Ah… oh…” Charles pauses, staring stiffly at the two guards and other surrounding people. Someone moved a step backward. The heated debate suddenly not-so-heated anymore, the conversation being thrown into frozen ice. There are gays here, sure, but that doesn’t include Jon. He has little money and doesn’t draw attention, doesn’t use glitter nor eyeliner, and almost never changes his coat; most tellingly, he does not do drugs or fuck around. Loose girls definitely fantasize about him, but no one knows for sure how many of them he had actually slept with, though rumor has it that he’s fantastic in bed. Someone had once seen his cock while in the toilet, and was said that he has a very personal Gram—Sword of Sigurd[9].

“Hey, old friend, I thought you like women.” Charles spreads his hands, shoulders slumping in defeat. “But,” he thinks, starting into renewed giggles as he nudges Jon more fiercely than necessary. “At least he’s not bad looking.”

The guards roar in laughter. Somebody reach out a hand in the chaos wanting to brush Clark on the cheek, but the reporter only glares with unflinching eyes. Jon uses some effort to straighten his spine, to avoid the harassment. Then, with two fingers, he hooks open Clark’s T-shirt collar and chucks the journalist pass into his undershirt.

“Get it out yourself or I’ll lick it out for you.” He is still smiling, but the expression on his face is as passive as ever, indistinct in the shadows. Unfortunately, Clark doesn’t dare to stare at his face at the moment, too busy pressing his palm over his chest to uphold the plastic card through two layers of clothing.

Clark is awkward as hell. Thankfully no one would care to see him blush under the poor lighting. Jon’s obscene jokes must’ve worked, as the people laugh and guffaw in a merry bunch. There are two gays holding each other, checking out Red Hood Jon as if seeing him in a whole new light. Some acknowledgements, and a little appreciation. The Aryan brothers have yet to figure out what is going on, as it is apparent that their brain capacities are inversely proportional to their muscle mass.

“Let us go,” Clark pleads under his breath.

“I had him wait at home, but it seems he is a little impatient.” Jon places his hand on the reporter’s waist and winks at the crowd. The people laugh even harder. He grabs Clark, dragging him in the opposite direction of the door. “Get in the bathroom,” he commands, without giving further explanation.

Clark struggles for a slight bit before frankly giving up. And, as they make their way through the dance floor, he places his hand around Jon’s slim waist as well. Method acting, Clark thinks, Jon wanted to save me, wanted to get us away…

The music is too loud, the subwoofers drumming ruthlessly like Thor’s hammer on his sensitive auditory nerves; the speakers on the wall are giving him a splitting headache, almost forcing him into shutting his eyes. He sticks close to Jon, stumbling along after him. He cannot understand what exactly humans wished to gain in a place like this.

“Go easy on him, Jonny!” Charles shouts over the noise as he claps his hands.

Jon pulls him into the men’s room and throws open a nearby door, demanding quite impatiently at the guy inside who’s currently vomiting into the toilet, “Get lost! I have some personal business to deal with!”

The guy wipes his mouth and runs off with his tail between his legs. Jon throws Clark into the cubicle—for a moment, Clark remembers the time when his Pa used to throw bags of corn and wheat into the barn or the truck, and that brings a smile to his face.

Jon squeezes in, shutting the door and locking it. “Fuck! Flush it!” He hisses at Clark, “Humans, such disgusting creatures.” He circles beside the toilet, retching twice, and refuses to spare the mess a look.

Indeed the stale air here is filled with the odor of alcohol, body fluids, cosmetics, and the sour of rancid food; there’re two windows at least to help with ventilation, and the door are quite good at blocking off the noises. The temperature is much lower in here, and much quieter. If it wasn’t for the strange telling sounds that could be heard every once in a while, this can definitely be counted as a gateway to paradise comparing to where they were moments ago.

Clark presses a hand onto his chest—the journalist pass is still sliding down—and with the other hand pulls a length of toilet paper, wrapping it before flushing the toilet twice and casting the paper in after. “… Done. Now what?” he asks.

Jon has his back towards him, rubbing at his face with both hands, before turning suddenly to grab hold of the bigger man’s shoulders. Jon pins Clark onto the panel wall, and the poor synthetic fibers let out a high screech.

Despite the fierce expression on his face like he wanted to devour people, Jon did not actually use his full strength, just purposefully made a loud noise. A pound came from the next cubicle, “Hey! Asshole! Be quiet!”

“You almost ruined everything,” the crook whispers into the reporter’s ear, using an almost inaudible volume. “You can start screaming now.”

“Scream… scream? What do you mean by ‘scream’?” Clark asks weakly, keeping his voice similarly low.

“Imagine being stabbed by a knife. Just scream! Quick!” Jon is saying as he rips open the zipper on Clark’s overcoat and presses a palm over the larger man’s chest, feeling him through layers of cloth to find the position of the elusive journalist pass. “… I’ll squeeze it out for you,” he raises his voice without warning, dragging the final note of the sentence and making every syllable husky and indolent.

Damn it. Not here, not with that kind of voice.

Clark groans, “I, I’ll do it myself…”

Jon sticks two fingers into his mouth with all the familiarity in the world. “Shut up, suck on this.”

Using his other hand to pull the reporter’s shirt out of his jeans, Jon reaches in, and Clark can feel the heat of three fingers brushing against his abs. The smaller man did not wear gloves today, Clark notes pensively.

He can feel the callus on those fingertips, hard but not rough. Those fingers climbing upwards along his skin, rubbing, up and up. Clark ‘whines’ a couple times in protest, fumbling to grab hold of that groping hand, but he is afraid to use force, worried that he at any moment could break the other man’s arm or bite through his fingers or—or hurt him in some other way. Clark is resisting with strength rather disproportionate to his huge bulk, and he just knows Jon would therefore mistake him as being physically weak.

Clark spits out Jon’s mischievous fingers, and can finally explain in a lowered tone. “I just followed you to the door… was searched.”

“They search every new faces,” Jon answers, a finger grazing against Clark’s belly. “Deep breath, baby, I’m going to give you an operation.” He is smirking as he touches the edge of the journalist pass, fishing it out in a fluid motion.

His words and actions so refined, Clark suspects he had a lot of practice. He lets out a heavy sigh as Jon retrieve his fingers, “You’re a fucking asshole, Jon.”

“Good work,” the crook taps the reporter on the cheek with the press card, chuckling rather impudently. “That’s it… let me hear it, baby. Now, move your hips… see? I’m not going to teach it again, you have to work for it.”

Clark moves as ordered though his heart is certainly elsewhere. His ass and back thump against the dividing panel, causing someone to answer with a couple bangs back. Jon is practically plastered to his chest as he let out hissing breaths; once, and again; he murmurs, “I was so worried they would drag you to the basement, take a knife to you. Cut you up, stab you.” He repeats this twice, and something else a couple more times, “You shouldn’t be here, shouldn’t have followed me. You shouldn’t be here. Here.”

And then he says, “That’s about enough.”

“Enough what?” Clark asks.

Jon moans loudly as he lean against the larger man’s torso, then whispers, “You, too.” It takes Clark a couple more seconds to remember that they’re putting on a show, and that nobody can actually keep it up all night like Rasputin[10].

Clark wants to comply, but ends up breaking down in laughter. A silent chuckle, causing his chest to raise and fall in suppressed hysterics. Jon pushes him aside at once, turning away, keeping the disgusting toilet between them.

It’s getting awfully noisy outside, but seems unrelated to them and it provides a cover for them to talk. Clark tucks the hem of his T-shirt back into his pants, fumbling with the zippers.

“Sorry… I… sorry.” He seems to say this a lot.

Jon nods. “What do you want from me? Me? You see me as I am, and I am nothing.”

Clark is still clutching onto the card, his smile is rigid, and he gestures like he is about to make a speech in front of an audience back in school. “You’re _not_ nothing. Jon, I know… uh, I mean, I just know… uh…” He bits his lip, feeling so thirsty he cannot continue. The longer he stays in Gotham City, the more familiar he is with this kind of thirst. This… human-like mentality.

“I admit I’m a thief, nothing more. You wouldn’t care, would you?” Jon finishes with, chucking a wallet back at him. Clark recognizes it, as it is his Christmas present from Ma. It should’ve been safely in his pocket, right? And Jon had just snatched it, without him noticing.

As Clark catches the wallet, the compartment door is flung open from the outside; two police officers are standing there, with guns raised and flashing their golden shields.

“GCPD! Turn around and put your hands behind your back!” they order. Jon notices that they are wearing ballistic vests and blue uniforms, that’s curious, as cops don’t usually come down here.

Another three blue uniforms appear standing behind the two, all with their truncheons raised ready to dish out a sound beating to anybody who so much as breathe wrong. There are a few other pairs of men and women in the men’s room, already deprived of belts and shoelaces, squatting in a neat row facing the wall. Only one chick hadn’t been patted down, as she wasn’t wearing anything in the first place. None of the cops are staring at her though, all sticks-in-the-mud handpicked by Jim Gordon.

Something must’ve happened, for the police to send out a whole unit.

Clark leaps up, clutching his journalist pass as he block off the way. “We’re reporters!” He says, practically shoving the press card up an officer’s nose, “We’re from the Daily Planet, from Metropolis! This is our identification!”

Comparing to the guys and gals by the wall, they _are_ relatively well-dressed; no dyed hair and no ear piercings and no mascara, no sign of drug use and the estimated blood alcohol content on the breathalyzer are within normal range, T-shirts properly tucked in, and hands clean of things like semen or condoms or white powder bags. Moreover, there are anti-counterfeit laser engravings on any journalist passes that originated from Metropolis, and suddenly this godforsaken card turned into their way out.

A few words are exchange between the cops, before they quickly come to a decision. “All reporters out! No interviews!”

Clark seizes Jon and drags him out by hand. They trudge straight through the yellow tapes and out of the front gate. All lights in the bar are lit, the blaring music stopped, the skull ceased its rotation, and all madmen and freaks are turned against the walls with arms over their heads. Charles and the bodyguards are among them, obediently facing a wall, afraid to even twitch let alone turn since there are guns with safeties off pointing at their back.

Clark sneaks glances at Jon’s left leg as they walk, worried that a more prominent limp might give them away. He is almost certain Jon doesn’t have a valid identification on him, and he doubts his reimbursement were enough for his bail.

Unexpectedly, Jon’s gait is quite steady; he’s pushing himself, refusing to show even a hobble. He walks with his head held high, as if he is ready to challenge a marathon.

Relying on the protection provided by an authentic press pass, they can walk off from right under the nose of all the blue uniforms. Reporter Clark Kent even gets to stop by and look professional, asking some questions of the policewoman who is maintaining order by the door.

“Yes… someone died… No, no, I can’t be sure… no comment, misters, please stay clear of the yellow line.”

Clark and Jon are happy to retreat from the scene, making their way to the Eastend Park across the street. Jon fishes out a crumpled pack of cigarettes and a disposable lighter.

“Give me one,” Clark says. He has taken off his coat and thrown it over his shoulder, and he is leaning against the iron park fence with his whole body weight.

“You also smoke?” Jon looks at him in mild surprise. But comparing to the norm, that much expression on Red Hood Jon can be interpreted as ‘very surprised.’

“Learned ten years ago. Quitted after I graduated from college.” Clark takes the pack from his hand and shakes out a cigarette, deftly sticking one between his lips like all those chain smokers before igniting it with the lighter.

“It contains marijuana,” Jon is staring at the glowing tip.

“I know,” Clark takes a drag, inhaling deeply, as he taps at the ash. He crouches down slowly, pushing up his glasses, and tilts his head wearily to gaze at Jon.

There is no working streetlamp around here, only that speck of firelight illuminating his face, and the enveloping smoke. His weariness is real.

“… No, you don’t,” Jon says, biting into the end of his own reefer, “because it doesn’t contain any.”

“I know that, too,” Clark answers.

He observes the way Jon lights his smoke, the way he breathes in carefully. The visor of the baseball cap efficiently blocks off all nightlight, and the fire from the cigarettes are not enough to unveil his expression.

“You don’t know anything.” Jon abandons the roll of tobacco by the railing after only two drags, didn’t smoke much at all. He leans against the low wall, hugging his arms.

Across the street, officers and crowds of people are walking in and out; the sound of speakers and walkie-talkies, the sound of someone crying or swearing. Jon takes them all in and suddenly he grounds out, terse and to-the-point, “Thanks.”

It’s not easy for him to express any form of gratitude.

Clark doesn’t respond. He doesn’t move until he finishes the cigarette.

 

 

 

 

* * *

  

**Author's Notes**

[7] _gamma_ -Hydroxybutyric acid, colorless and odorless but with a salty taste, it is a central nervous system depressant and an addictive substance widespread in the US among teenagers that’s often used as a type of date rape drug.

[8] Gotham City Police Department badge is a golden shield.

[9] From the collected poems in “Edda” and related Norse mythology, Gram was the name of the sword that Sigurd used to kill the dragon Fafnir. It was forged by Volund and meant Wrath in Old Norse.

[10] Grigori Yefimovich Rasputin, a Russian peasant and a mystical faith healer, said to have an unquenchable sex drive. Indulge in wild orgies even in his 50s, and has no problem getting up next day for the Morning Prayer. He was assassinated in an overly complex manner; his genitals were later cut off and placed in a museum by the Russian government.

 

 **Translator's Notes**  

[T6] 我_爻_当_忍_禇: I trigram be endure silk  
[T6] 我_要_当_忍者: I want (to) be (a) ninja

 

 

 

 


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello everyone, I'm back! This chapter is updated in celebration of Justice League(2017), and if you somehow haven't seen the movie yet I recommend you go check it out! It's awesome! Anyway my apologies for the long wait, but I'm back to translating this, and hopefully I could move on to other of greenlock's works in the future. Because she recently started writing a story set in JL/DCEU and it is REALLY REALLY GOOD.

Clark sinks into the couch rather uncomfortably, buckling against an armrest with his head nestling on a cushion. His laptop rested on his knees.

The style of this sofa is a bit old school, with wooden rails and brackets. It looks like the one from home, not his ‘home’ in Metropolis—the furnishing in that apartment is fixed, with all the typical features that come with a cosmopolitan flat where you see white plaster in every corner; furthermore, the landlord prohibited any changes made to the interior decoration. For the longest time he only return there for naps, and that its existence were defined by the books and papers he had lost amid its messiness. He spotted this couch back when he’d just arrived in Gotham; it’s almost new, showcased in a thrift store around the New Reformed Area, its vintage cloth painted with fringed iris and immediately it made him think of his home back in Kansas.

Superman might be able to carry it back to Metropolis, but he still would not have any space to put it. Nothing seem to go the way he wanted since he first step into Gotham City, like a curse; it started with an old couch, and continued with a street crook.

He uses super-speed to write his draft sometimes when nobody’s watching, but he has nothing to write about at the moment. He still heard nothing from Bruce Wayne. The case from last night could be a good topic, and he _did_ eavesdrop on the police with his super-hearing, but that was cheating. Besides, a Metropolis paper has no need to fight Gotham papers for local crime news like this, how does Perry usually put it? — “It is not engaging.”

Clark turns, shutting the notebook and putting it back into his traveling bag. He hugs a throw pillow, long legs hanging off one side of the armrest and letting his whole body sink into the cushions. This sofa is slightly smaller than the one at home, thus it is too small for his bulk. This one is more suitable for two people sitting side-by-side; or for leaning against one another in a small house with a cozy mantelpiece, watching the television together with popcorn and hot cocoa, the lights bright and the windows clear. There would be kisses, jokes, and hugs.

There is only a pillow in his arms, and opposite from him?

Just Jon. Red Hood Jon, who is already asleep.

Clark has been in Gotham for five days, living in this basement for four, and three and a half of those days were spent watching him sleep. Jon doesn’t take off his shirt and jeans when he sleep, said he doesn’t have nightclothes. He didn’t care about dirtying the clean white linens with his muddy pants, he didn’t before and he certainly doesn’t care now. He always tucks a hand under the pillow, his back towards Clark, and curls up like a baby. The blanket twisted in a knot cuddling tightly in his arms, his wounded leg thrown over it and bending at a more comfortable angle.

Clark can only guess at how he felt, can only scan his wounds.

This is another cheating behavior. His conscious is clear this time, yet he still uses his X-vision to observe Jon’s body. He had wanted to check on his calf, and was surprised by how well it is healing. For a person who relies on bone knitting itself back together, with minimal sunlight and no calcium supplement, not enough rest every day and a lack of recuperation, never mind a proper rehabilitation program… he is lucky there is no sign of osteoporosis or dislocation fracture.

Clark cannot figure out how that it, but he decides not to push and restores his normal vision. When his focused vision brushes pass blood and bone to touch at Jon’s flesh however, he stopped. The bruising under his skin has yet to fade, with a mild swelling, but the sculpturing of those muscles is beautiful. He can hear blood rushing through this man, can see his calves and slender legs. His gaze follows the curve of the smaller man’s joints, thighs, hips, the small of his back.

Clark—Kal can feel the pounding of his own heart, his breath quickens.

No, that’s not right. He soon notices the rhythmic thumping that takes up most of his attention does not come from himself, but from the man lying on the bed. He has been listening to his heartbeat, without realizing it. Clark lies on his back shifting to a more agreeable position, before shutting his eyes and rubs at his ears. He can hear the sound of the whole world—obviously not here, too much interference—but instead he chose to bury himself in this pile of garbage excused for a building, underground, listening to the heartbeat of a jerk throughout the night.

He can’t stop some of his human-like behavior, much too late; he can’t stop breathing on Earth. These weaknesses would get him killed. He has tried, multiple times, but he cannot control his sensitive auditory nerve. He could not stop listening.

Clark puts down pillow and goes out, through the hallway and out the first floor. This rental house is like a graveyard in the small hours of Gotham, with dusts and fungal spores drifting in the air, slippers and waste papers stacked in a corner. Jon’s heartbeat accompanied him the whole way.

A note in Mrs. White’s handwriting is glued to the back of the closed bathroom door: No hot water between 00 to 12, no throwing cigarette butts into the toilet, no peeing in the shower, et cetera. It’s only five in the morning, no hot water, so Clark washes his face with icy water in the public bathroom.

And then, he contacts the Watchtower control room on his league communicator. It is Diana who answered.

“Everything peaceful around the world?” he asks in his Superman-voice.

“The usual,” is the reply. Though from the sounds of it, even the vigorous Amazon Princess seemed tired, not due to a lack of sleep but a psychological burnout resulted from a long shift of repetitious and monotonous monitoring duty. Sounds of tapping on screens can be heard from that side of the communicator. “There’s a small volcanic eruption in Mexico that affected two nearby towns, John and the Flash went to evacuate the civilians. It went smoothly. Though you know how some elderlies are, very reluctant to leave their homeland. The Flash thought it would be easier to knock them out before taking them somewhere safer.”

“That’s not a good idea.” He can’t hear it anymore… that heartbeat. He finally returns to his Kal-El persona.

“Lantern would not let him do that. Together they created a bit of a… ah, they faked a miracle or—in Batman’s words—uh, group psychotherapy. Hera bless them, I hope the gods would understand it all.”

It’s weird hearing the word “psychotherapy” from Diana. Standing in the middle of this shabby bathroom located somewhere in the middle of a Gotham slum, Kal quirks his lips into his trademark Superman-smile. “They’ll understand,” he says with a laugh, “It’s all about doing good.”

The Princess takes a sip of coffee as she again taps on the screen, “Two hours ago, a couple in Central Asia tried to cross No Man’s Land to a refugee camp under the jurisdiction of International Assistance Organization with four children. They ran into religious fanatics carrying firearms and the children prayed to angels for help. We received the distress call, and Shayera got to it. The Flash had wanted to help, but we needed more manpower with the volcano.”

“That would be the experience of a lifetime for the kids.” Kal gazes up and wipes his fingers through the dirty mirror above the sink, drawing a tiny winged angel with his fingertips. Simple, like a child’s painting. “Angels should have huge feathered wings and would beat up bad guys with a hammer, what do you think?”

Diana laughed. “The Flash isn’t good enough then. He’s too ‘smooth’.”

Kal gives his drawn angel a halo. “What else?” He asks as he rubs his fingers over the soap next to the sink. Mrs. White refused to provide hand sanitizers for public use, stating that they ran out too quickly since there would always be someone stealing the stuff. Jon said they would clean baby’s bottle with hand-wash liquids stolen from restaurants, because apparently according to some people, anything that can foam can be used to clean everything.

Suddenly the other side of the communicator goes quiet. Except for the purposeful loud slurping sound as Diana sips at the last drop of coffee from the bottom of the cup like an eleventh grade middle school student. “By the way, Kal,” she pauses for a few seconds and sighs, before continuing, “This is what I heard, since I did not see the actual recording—nine hours ago a young girl leaped off the Tokyo Tower, to protest against… decisions… made by the local government. J’onn was on duty at the time.”

“And?”

“She died. She is not within our jurisdiction since the agreement we have reached with the United Nations does not allow our intervention, and she did not call for help. But… poor J’onn, he watched it happen, and then immediately asked me to fill in for the rest of his shift… Kal, he said he needed a break and went to his room.”

“How is he now?” Kal forgets that his finger is still on the soap, thus he accidentally pierces right through it. Mrs. White would be very angry when she found out.

“J’onn? He is recovered and had just checked up on me, said he could help me finish my shift if I felt tired. I told him he could’ve tried to save her if it would make him feel better, and leave the talking and negotiations to Batman. Guess what he said?” Kal hears a strange sound coming from the opposite end and feels as if Diana had just sucked on her fingertip. Does Wonder Woman suck on her finger? It feels weird just imagining it.

Perhaps not only aliens, but also gods and goddesses would occasionally display human-like behavior.

“I think I can guess what he said, Diana. We just have to accept that some people will never call for help,” Kal says.

“Yes, Kal. J’onn said a desperate soul is the hardest to rescue, he tried, but he was too late.” The demi-goddess gazes out to the world from the sky, and she answers in a bleary voice.

“… I understand, and let’s leave it at that. I’m going to hang up now, but before I go here’s my good morning to you, Diana. Rest early.” Kal’s finger pauses on the communicator and he quietly adds, “I miss you guys.”

“We miss you too, Kal. Good morning and I’ll see you soon,” Diana replies gently.

Kal sighs, grabbing his glasses and hunches his shoulders, and Superman turns back into simple Clark Kent. Throughout the call the building stands eerie and still in the pitch darkness, and he retraces his steps back the way he came with silence as his only company. Even the sound of that familiar heartbeat is absent. He turns on the light as he walks down the hallway. The new light bulb was quite bright, and he easily finds the key before inserting it into the lock, but he does not open the door until five long minutes later.

He spends five minutes sorting out his thoughts, carefully compartmentalizing the terms that involved volcanoes, hometowns, religion, children, refugees, angels, the Tokyo Tower and a dead girl. He was thinking of having to talk to Batman sooner or later about the Justice League Jurisdiction Protocol, but not right now.

He opens the door and sees that Jon is still lying there, in the exact same spot. He closes the door cautiously and tries not to make any overly loud noises. Jon has always slept fitfully, as Clark could tell just by listening to his uneasy heartbeat. Clark doesn’t want to wake him up.

“Come up to bed.” Jon suddenly murmurs, and turns to the side.

“What? Bed?” The last hint of Superman drifted away, leaving only Clark Kent standing there by the door. There are still droplets of water clinging on his cheek.

“Don’t bother, just get in.” Jon rolls over, propping his head up with both hands. His eyes are open and looking straight at Clark.

Clark removes his glasses and wipes at his face, as he walks to the side of the single bed. His arms outstretch to measure the width of the tiny bed. “… see, I rather not.”

Jon glances at him. “Don’t force me to beat you up before dragging you to bed—baby cousin.” He shuffles back to make room on the bed, his back plastering onto the wall, generous, like the caliphate of Baghdad[11].

Clark places his glasses beside the pillow, and then lies down like Jon in his T-shirt and jeans. They share a single small pillow between them. And Clark awkwardly puts his hands on his stomach, with half of his body hanging outside the bed. Jon still takes up more than half the space, the rest is given to the big man beside him as a reward.

They lay side by side, face blank and extremely uncomfortable, and no one could actually sleep. Clark glances at the couch from time to time, “It’s almost dawn,” he says.

“I know that,” Jon replies, “If you would be so kind, help me get a copy of today’s Gotham Gazette later.”

“I’m glad to help.” Clark guesses Jon would like to follow-up on last night’s incident at Skull Bay Blue. He isn’t about to ask for more detail.

“Hey… are you comfortable, lying like this?” Jon rolls over again, propping himself up to look at him. He offers up some more space, but Clark keeps his limited distance.

“As far as bed-sharing experiences go, this is as bad as it could get.” Clark answers truthfully with a slight movement of his lips, his back feels stiff.

Jon covers his face with his hands, his soft dark curls falling down and covering his forehead. He looks young and his complexion is not as bad as the previous two days. He smiles and says, “Well, well, Clark Kent. You’re a reporter, you smoke, um, and you bed strangers on the side… what else? And here I was, thinking you were a Boy Scout.”

Red Hood Jon is not wearing his red hoodie now, Little Red Riding Hood is not wearing the little red riding hood.

The muscles on Clark’s cheek twitches, resisting the smile tugging at the corner of his mouth, “Sorry to let you down, Mr. Thief, but there’s nothing more. I’m not glamorous, and currently don’t even have a girlfriend. My biggest secret is my high school report card. From a certain point of view, I also have nothing, Jon.”

“That’s not true.” Jon hides his face behind his hands. Inexplicably, he is laughing, his shoulder muscles were quivering underneath the thin layer of cloth—Clark isn’t sure when he’d given up on staring at the cute butterfly prints on the couch, and instead turned to this good-for-nothing crook… He remembers the detailed outline of his arms, the lines—

Clark reaches out and pinches Jon’s shoulder suddenly, searching for that warm tactile sensation underneath the thin layer of clothing… He is pretty much head-over-heels screwed. “Don’t laugh,” he says, intentionally solemn, “Fine, I admit I was dumped. Quite recently actually.”

Jon doesn’t notice at all this time that he is being taken advantage of. “You mean the woman colleague of yours? The one that is more than a match for the hot babes at TIME?”

“Yeah.”

“I knew it. The way you describe her, and with light shining out of your eyes, as if it would cost you your life if I didn’t let you finish. Poor boy.” That crook triumphantly pushes his hand away, black hair smoothing over his face. In the dim morning light, his features look like that of a teenager.

Little Red Riding Hood is not wearing the little red riding hood, Little Red Riding Hood is not wearing anything on his head.

Clark lifts his hand again, but stops, shocked out of his sudden stupor. He has to get a grip of his daydreaming, as he had almost reached out to touch Jon’s hair.

That was absurd, yet in line with a ridiculous logic of some kind—last night this man had plastered to his side as he gasped and moaned, whispering debauched words into his ears. And this morning they lay in the same bed. It would almost make sense, if you cut this life into movie montage. In the end, Clark’s hand stays in the air. “You’re a bad guy,” he observes, withdrawing the hand.

At that very moment, an extremely high-pitched scream sounded from overhead. It is the tenant hostess from the first floor. “Hurry up—love me—kill me—!” The screech is accompanied by the sound of bedpost fiercely hammering into the ground.

Jon sits up and says, “It’s half past five.”

 

 

When the Flash arrives at the Watchtower Monitor Womb, Superman is adjusting the volume of the alarm.

Human hearing can sometimes become more sensitive as an individual reach a certain level of fatigue, and the volume most people find pleasant could turn irksome. Some doctors attribute it to a symptom of neurasthenia, but no one has studied whether Kryptonians would also have this problem.

There are two ways to adjust the volume of all the monitoring servers at once. A direct certified voice command, or by calling up that huge row of sliders on the main screen to select all, before adjusting it. Superman opts for the latter, as he seems to be tired of even his own voice. But when he calls up the tuning slider he hears laughter coming from the Scarlet Speedster, and that causes him to wince.

In fact, the Flash has been standing behind him for three seconds, which is practically the limited sum of all his patience. And he can’t help but laugh when he saw that the slider Superman called up was filled with indigo cornflower motif. Diana changed the control system background theme when she was on duty, and Superman had forgotten to change it back.

The Flash calls out in between his chuckles, “Change shift, Big Blue! Oh, I say, last time you turned the volume so low I almost mistaken the alarm as a hard drive fail warning.”

“So I have to get it back up to normal before changing to your shift,” Superman says. He reaches out to touch the screen, moving slightly slower than usual. Even the Flash can see his fatigue. Who said Superman doesn’t need to sleep as long as the sun is up? The Martian had said that some of them needed sleep not for their body, but for their spirit.

The Flash zooms up to the screen. “You sure look like you needed some rest,” he says as he opens up a mini shooting game, hitting the attack button sixty times within the first second. His accuracy is average but his speed is definitely cheating, and the mini game program could only identify up to twenty hits per second. It gets real boring real quick, and the Flash turns the game off. “The restaurant serves specialty steak today and I just had two.”

“Why only two?”

“Because the steak has disgusting as its specialty I’m sure. It’s unbelievable.” The Flash turns into an arcing bolt of lightning and immediately crosses the several dozen feet to the other side of the main control screen, and then points a finger at the object lying innocently on the armrest of the main control seat. He makes a loud noise, and at once causing a degree of pain to Superman’s already sensitive hearing, not unlike applying kryptonite to his auditory nerve.

“A newspaper?! You actually read newspaper while on duty?! Wow, wow, wow! Look at that, the Watchtower actually has newspapers made of paper!” The Flash grabs the stack of inky paper, shuffling through them at super speed causing the papers to buzz, “You could read this on the internet you know, you DO know how to operate the internet right? … Gotham Gazette? This stuff is Batman’s?”

“It’s mine,” Superman replies simply, as he rubs his ear.

“I don’t know you make it a hobby to collect things from the Bat’s hometown.” The Flash quiets for a second as he closes the newspaper, quickly scanning through the first and final headlines, and then turns the whole stack of newspapers around. He points at the colored photo taking up most of the front page. “Well, let me guess, did you buy this for the picture on the front page? Wow, these girls are hot! Your taste is really good! If only I could cut out Bruce Wayne from the center, this picture would be absolutely perfect. I would put it up on the wall by my bed.”

Superman is too tired to even bother with lifting an eyebrow. He is not interested in the picture, not that it meant he refused to recognize those girls’ feminine beauty. All of them are beautiful and elegantly graceful—the pearls of news media industry: a famous designer, a famous photographer, well-known column writers, and a celebrated editor… all knockouts in their own right. They are all dressed in white robes and ribbon sandals that emulate ancient goddesses of Greece. Sophisticated and gorgeous in their sultry poses as they flanked the Gotham Prince born with a silver spoon in his mouth. He the fashion pioneer, extreme sports enthusiast and sponsor, business tycoon philanthropist, and party king… Bruce Wayne, the billion-dollar boy.

The damn playboy actually wore a puffer jacket and hiking shoes for the camera.

Not to mention, the picture didn’t even get a clear shot of his face. He had most of his back to the camera, head slightly tilted to the side, with an arm outstretched holding a golden apple toward the TIME fashion magazine planning manager dressed as Aphrodite. On his other side, a Freshmen[12] columnist dressed as the moon goddess Artemis were gently placing a corolla made of bay leaves and olive branches upon his head.

The composition of the picture is very technical, like a sculpture, but filled with a somewhat ominous air. Wayne only showed the world a side of his face, the delicate outline of his nose and chin. This is the Paris of the modern world, and people could only pray that Gotham will not become the second city of Troy[T7].

The Flash read aloud the front page title, “ ‘Gotham Prince visits Pindus alone[13]’— mountain climbing is a good hobby, if there really are goddesses waiting at the top.”

“Not interested,” Superman replies, holding the armrest as he stands. Floats in fact, as he takes the newspaper from the Flash. “I have to go find Batman, has he arrived at the Watchtower?”

“Not yet as far as I know. He’s half an hour later than usual, Supes, today must be the Mayan apocalypse.” The Flash leaps to take his place at the main control seat, thought about it, before changing to slump on it instead. He snaps his fingers to pull the master control screen closer, tapping a few times to switch the background theme to Transformers.

“Love the truck head.” He sends a kiss to Optimus Prime.

Superman taps his head with the rolled-up Gotham Gazette. “Hope you can also give a little extra love to monitoring the alarm. See you later then.”

He drifts towards the exit and the control room sliding doors open automatically. Outside is the circular metal corridor, and on both sides various surveillance cameras adjust their focus with a quiet hiss, diligently capturing his presence. Kal drifts down the corridor alone, opening up the newspaper as he goes.

Both the front page and the second page have been taken up by Wayne’s extreme sports interview. The nation’s one-of-a-kind mogul has too much money, energy, and luck. He loves to use his life as fuel for extravagant public amusement, a fairytale life that is almost like nothing but smoke and mirrors.

The second page was filled with a small set of photos showing off his gear. Another bad angle for the photographer, as Wayne’s face is so blurry it is less in focus than the modified thermal insulation, elaborate ice axes and climbing claws, and goggles with various scanning features. Some of them are toys that Wayne Technologies designed specifically for their social darling, while others are makings of his own refit. Lucius Fox, CEO of Wayne Technologies, had once told the media that Bruce Wayne had at one time worked in the Research and Development department of his own enterprises. Clark had done a thorough research on the topic before arriving in Gotham City.

Some people take these gifts and talents to save the world, others use them solely to seek pleasure in their game of life. Wayne belongs in the latter, and Superman is not yet sure whether his Gotham colleague Batman can really be included in the former category.

He continues on to read the third page of the newspaper.

The third page is local news. The incident at Skull Bay Blue last night accounted for about four-fifths of the page, and the remaining one-fifth mentioned two robberies and a group fight. A girl not-yet-of-legal-age died as a result of overdosing on excessive amount of mixed drugs in that bar, and the informant alerted the police immediately after the body was found. Police officers flocked onto the scene, seized the bar, and brought everyone back for tests on drugs and alcohol. The results will attract people’s attention of course, due to more than half of the urine tests were positive, and only twelve individuals were released since they did not consume alcohol that night.

The only victim that night was a fourteen-year-old girl named Maria Weinster, child in a single-parent family, living on Goder Street in East Gotham Lutheran[14] district. Her father Arthur Weinster was a former convenience store cashier who died of colorectal cancer two years back; her mother Shirley Weinster works as a cleaner for multiple bars, clubs, and apartment blocks around East Gotham, with no stable income. Maria dropped out of school a year ago, and rarely returned home since then. Her mother found her hanging around the red-light district and sought out law enforcements for help, but ended up with a case of custody lawsuit on her hands. She was still awaiting the final verdict from the local welfare agency to this day.

The newspaper published the picture Maria’s mother provided back when she filed for the missing person report and a partial close-up of her recent corpse with its focus on her hands and face. Kal stares at them for the second time that day, and then once again shuts the page quickly.

This happened right next to him: when he was cuddling Red Hood Jon, Maria died in front of the sink, separated, merely by some flimsy layer of board. He was sure he had not heard any cries for help. If she did call, if anyone did make a sound, he would’ve heard them he was sure, even if he had been preoccupied play acting with a crook.

They say drugs can make people hallucinate, and Kal wonders whether she dreamed before taking her last breath—this is a weird thought, wanting so desperately to know the dying fantasy of a girl no more than a stranger, rather than the sorrowful history that made up her life. The final photo she gave to the world is of her eyes half-lidded, the gaze of a soul looking far away and beyond, frozen in her last moment.

“I don’t fancy this a good place to read the newspaper, Kal.” Batman’s harsh voice sounds from a distance closer than expected. The Bat is always quiet like a phantom, and seems to slither between the cracks to avoid all cameras of his own design. There he stands, a few feet away from Kal, the volume of his voice just muted enough to not grate on the Kryptonian’s nerves. Perfect, as he has always been.

“News from your home turf.” Kal lands on the floor, holding up the Gotham Gazette.

“I saw, Bruce Wayne,” says the Bat. “One of the League’s sponsors. Don’t tell me you don’t know that.”

“Not that page, I mean this one.” Superman hands him the third page of the edition, then rolls the rest of the papers clutched in his hand into a cylindrical shape.

Batman just picks it up and shakes it out, but does not offer it a glance. His eyes are still hidden underneath the white visor lenses, so Kal listens to his heartbeat, but even that was steady and calm. Not moved in the least by the tragic death of an innocent girl. “I knew about this as well, a child prostitute died, of drug overdose.” He folds the paper and returns it to Superman.

“I suggest you find somewhere where you can read this while sitting.” He brushes past the taller Kryptonian and heads for the dorm area. And Kal finally hears the silent hissing sound of cameras focusing on the Bat—but only when he is close enough.

“You were not there last night when it happened.” Kal rolls up the third page with the rest of the newspaper. Whether it is due to fatigue or not, his voice shakes a little as he continues, “But I was.”

Batman stops, the jagged edges of his cape drag on the floor like shadows and hide his legs. Between the two of them, the Bat looks more like the one that glides. “You were Clark Kent last night,” he said. He continues on his way, judging by the direction is heading back to his own room on the next floor down.

Kal doesn’t deny that as he follows after the Bat. Just following, with his head down, muttering. Not a speech, or a confession, he is just talking to himself. “When Maria Weinster died, I was only a few feet away, separated by nothing but some fiberboard. Yet I couldn’t save her.”

“She didn’t call for help.” The Bat stops again as he glances back, opening his mouth to speak in that unquestionably authoritative tone he usually reserves for dignitaries. “You shouldn’t blame yourself, Kal,” he tells his companion. “Come with me, I have something to show you.”

“What is it?”

“The last fantasy of the dead.”

 

 

 

 

* * *

 

**Author's Notes**

[11] A caliphate is a state under the leadership of an Islamic steward known as a caliph, a person considered a religious successor to the Islamic prophet Muhammad and a leader of the Muslim community. The Caliphate of Baghdad is the leader of the Abbasid dynasty. He is rich and generous, and many stories were told of him in the Arabian Nights.

[12] Freshmen (magazine). Yes, that one.

[13] Pindus, Oroseira Pindhou in modern Greek, is located in central Balkan in southern Europe. One of the ancient Greek war sites, there are many ski resorts.

[14] Lutheranism is a major branch of Protestant Christianity which identifies with the theology of Martin Luther.

 

 **Translator's Notes**  

[T7] These are all referencing the story of the golden apple and Paris (who is the son of King Priam and Queen Hecuba of Troy), that ultimately leaded to the Trojan War.

 

 

 

 


	9. Chapter 9

How much can a city change due to the death of a child prostitute? That is something beyond even Superman’s imagination.

The photo of Maria Weinster was printed on the local newspaper six hours after her death. On the first day she was sidelined to page three, but by the next, she is the front page headline.

The people living in that diocese took to the streets, arriving at Eastend Park located right across from the site of the incident, and offered flowers to pay tribute to the girl who died so young. At first there were only a few lilies and roses, but twelve hours after the report of her death daisies, hyacinths, and some strelitzias start showing up. Bouquets were reorganized by welfare institution volunteers into the shape of Maria’s initial ‘MW’, with flowers and gifts taking up the whole street corner. After nightfall, some of Maria’s former classmates from the same Christian school would come to stand by the flowers, singing hymns as they lit up candles. A well-dressed old lady sat by the pavement with a “Mary Magdalene” sign overnight.

News agency from all over the United States reported on that incident for several days after that to varying degrees, and Gotham Gazette garnered a high level of interest on the internet, with over ten thousand reblogs per day. Experts and scholars once again start publishing articles and conduct speeches on children sex crimes, drug trafficking, the decline in social security, the invalidation of law enforcements, religious influence on the public, and so on. The New York Times and the Daily Planet published two articles respectively to criticize Batman, one asking rather bluntly where had the dark-clad vigilante been when the girl died; the other questioning whether the salvation philosophy of superheroics are any different from performance art, and the legitimacy of Batman’s existence.

That article finishes with, “And he didn’t even give the girl a flower with a bat-shaped card.” Clark takes note of the journalist for that article, but it was written by a newbie that he isn’t all that familiar with.

Clark Kent, frontline reporter for the Daily Planet, receives a telephone call from the chief editor asking him to stay in Gotham City for a little while longer to follow up on that incident. He is interviewing the patrolman who maintains order around the park gates at the time and he just happens to run into the woman officer he interviewed on the night of the incident.

Her face has the features of Dominican immigrants, dark eyes tired but beautiful.

They stand amidst the gathering of mourners and emotional churchgoers. Still little more than strangers to one another, they cannot hide the surprise they feel when they caught each other’s eyes. And when Clark pushes through the crowd towards her, she gives him a quick nod of her head.

“… It will end, and it won’t be long,” she tells the reporter in a weary tone of voice way beyond her physical age. Clark doesn’t know what exactly she sees reflected in his eyes.

Maria Weinster’s mother refused to face the media, and so GCPD provided her with personal protection. She didn’t show up until a week later on the day Maria’s body was cremated, before disappearing again into the void.

Three days after Maria’s death, Prince of Gotham Bruce Wayne was injured on his ski trip in Greece and was taken to Switzerland for convalescence. This time he was only on the eighth page, and the newspaper unfortunately couldn’t procure a colored photo of Wayne in gauze and gypsum as proof. Later, the Gotham Gazette would dub this week as the Gotham “Black Week” of the year in their Annual Culture Summary.

One week after the girl’s death, her body was cremated and her ash buried in the church cemetery. The candles lit around the gates of Eastend Park burned out all too soon, the flowers withered, and the related internet articles became ancient history. Gotham Municipal Services sent people to clean up that city block, and Clark Kent boarded the return flight to Metropolis.

Seven months later Maria’s case would eventually be concluded as a suicide. In that time a new face would be appointed as the next district attorney for Gotham City, several nameless GCPD officers would turn in their resignation due to pressure on the job, and no one would know the full insider story. Her case would not be linked to the ‘van Dessa file’ due to a lack of insufficient evidence. On the other hand, the majority of the hooligans, bodyguards, prostitutes and child prostitutes, unstable middle school students and desperate homosexuals… anyone who was there with Maria in the Skull Bay Blue that night, as long as they were unrelated to the van Dessa case, would be fully detoxified and released by then, to once again pursuit their free lives.

After Skull Bay Blue was sealed up by the authorities, the rest of the bars and motels around Eastend Park followed suit, closing down one by one. But that only lasted for about three days, as once the mourners started to dwindle a smattering of the nightlife activities gradually returned, and within a week, the entertainment industries on the streets were back to business.

A small fraction of Gotham City’s darkness was exposed due to the crucifixion of a child prostitute named Maria, and corruption died for three short days, before once again prospering with even more vigor as it devour countless other livelihoods.

People like Python van Dessa was not touched by the whole incident, despite the fact that everyone knew he was somehow connected to the drugs in Maria’s hand, and yet his identity remained a guarded mystery even after the girl was dead and buried. As for Red Hood Jon, he couldn’t even deny the disrepute honor of being an accomplice after been seen that night at the bar.

Forty hours after Maria’s death, reporter Clark returns to the muddy alleyway of the 23rd Street district with labored steps, coat over one shoulder and a small pack holding his recorder and camera in hand. He immediately sees the man in a red hoodie huddling on a pile of black garbage bag.

Jon is silently twitching in a street corner, in the middle of the day. Clark helps him sit up, and sees that Jon’s nose is bleeding and there is an ugly bruise on his chin.

“Who did this?” Clark’s voice quivers even more than he did back on the Watchtower. He is shaking in anger for two people, as Clark can also feel Kal flare up in rage.

“Someone you don’t know,” Jon answers calmly. His lip is split in the corner, flaked with dried blood. A testimony to the sound beating he had received, and he sways on his feet as he tries to stand. Clark knows that Jon can dish out as much as he can take, but at that moment he just looks drained, as if he hasn’t slept for thirty or forty hours straight. And that is beyond what a normal human can take.

“How about I get to know them now?” Clark pauses as soon as he says this, realizing how foolish it is for him to lash out like this. What does he expect himself to do? Beat up random people on a random Gotham street? No, of course not. Neither Superman nor Clark Kent can do that. With a sigh, Clark lets Jon lean on him as together they stand, ignoring the stains he gets on his shirt for the trouble. He’s acutely aware of the irony in him playing this particular character: a seemingly sincere journalist, having just returned from the scene of mourning for a girl indirectly killed by the local gang, and then promptly goes to cuddle a member of said gang in a street corner.

There have been too many people to share in his joy and glory, yet the good times seem less real than the now. Less real than this man before him, who can only share in his blood and pain and sour buttermilk, this man who cannot even stand properly without his help.

“Let us go home.” Clark pulls Jon’s arm over one shoulder, holding him steady. “I remember you have a bottle of pain-relief spray?”

“Not sure if it’s expired,” Jon closes his eyes as he leans his weight into the taller man, his forehead touching the other man’s cheek.

They make their way deeper into the alleyway. A few gypsy women with bared calves stare down at them with critical eyes from their balconies as they pretend to hang out newly washed clothing. Dennis Samuel is again crawling out from his house window, and Clark wonders why the child is not at school, but perhaps his classmates had all left to pay tribute to Maria.

Dennis swings his skinny arms, making himself look like a puppet hanging from the railing. “Hey, guys! Jon buddy!” He greets Jon in his usual manner.

Jon comes alive at once, dragging Clark to a stop and opens his eyes. He gazes up at the child. “Den,” he calls softly, with some hesitation, before raising his volume after a few seconds pause. His voice is suddenly full of life, as if he had just taken a shot of morphine, and gone were the pain and fatigue. He stands upright, with a hand placed firmly on Clark’s shoulder. “Den. Kid, why aren’t you at school?” Jon asks.

His voice is so oddly cheerful that Clark can’t help but turn to sneak a glance and, lo and behold, finds a smile upon Jon’s mutilated face.

“Classes were suspended for today due to, you know, but my family could not afford the flowers and I’m not interested in paying tribute anyway.” Dennis says, as he pokes at the locked window with his thumb. “Luke is doing it with my mom again. That son of a bitch.”

“I thought you would go, even if only to look for the Batman,” Jon muses. Clark cannot help but grimaces as he hear the word “Batman” coming out of his mouth, especially at a time like this.

The eight-year-old boy tilts his head as he thinks out loud, “If I were Batman, I would be investigating the death of Maria Weinster. Jon buddy, the real Batman would not mourn for Maria, because what good would mourning do? And since he wouldn’t go, then neither would I.”

Jon sways a little on his feet, and Clark quickly holds him closer to keep him steady. “Let us go home.” Clark says again, voice so gentle it is as if he was coaxing a small animal.

Dennis finally notices him. “Who’s the big guy with them foolish glasses, buddy?” He asks, pointing a finger.

“My baby cousin,” Jon answers with a wide grin. He then digs into his grimy coat pocket to pull out a small black flechette, before handing it to Clark. “You know how to throw a dart, baby cousin?”

“Call me something else and I just might,” Clark takes the peculiar-looking projectile and inspects it. It is a plastic batarang, poorly made with rough edges, and no sign of any trademark emblem. The paintwork is done quite nicely however, and Clark briefly wonders what the Bat’s reaction would be if he ever saw such toys—though truthfully, the Bat would most likely not react at all.

“Den, catch!” Jon calls out, just as Clark skillfully throws that tiny little thing onto the Samuel family balcony. And by the time Dennis picks up the toy and lets out a shriek of delight, they have already made their way into the rundown building below.

Clark walks Jon back into the basement and lets him sit on the couch, before making a return trip to the ground floor to get cool water. He is just about to knock on the door with the basin hold in front of him, when disturbance is heard from overhead.

“Ah, ah—kill me—kill me!” It’s eleven o’clock at noon, yet the Schloms are already going at each other tirelessly.

East Gotham taxicab service is suspended these two days for Maria’s memorial, and Mr. Hanson Schlom was forced to take the days off. He probably got lonely staying at home alone, so he simply let his wife take her needlework home. As a result, another important day-to-day exercise of theirs turned into a 24-hour-long service, and that’s probably the real reason why Jon was out on the street at unfamiliar hours.

Another round of thumping is heard, but this time the sound is a bit different from the rubbing of bedposts against the floor. It is more clipped, and with a clear rhythm. And Clark enters the room to find Jon standing on top of a crate, knocking on the ceiling with a long wooden staff. “Let it go,” Clark says as he holds back a chuckle, looking around for a place on the floor to put down the basin.

“I don’t normally care, but I’m in a bad mood today,” Jon huffs. And Clark has no idea why such a vibrant display of bad temper actually makes him feel a tiny bit better.

As soon as the upstairs bedpost makes a sound, Jon answers with a violent knock on the ceiling. With the constant reminders to serve as distractions, Mrs. Schlom quickly quiets down and Mr. Schlom finishes in half the time as his usual. Though of course the subsequent climax is still there, and Jon punctuates that almost aggressively with a final upward bang, knocking down flakes of white plaster. Eventually the bed upstairs stops squeaking and Jon’s staff splitters down the middle. He casts it aside, and then climbs down from the crate with a small stumble.

Clark helps Jon to the couch, before he goes to retrieve the staff. That thing gives off a sense of familiarity, like the toy batarang. He must have seen something similar from somewhere.

“What is this?”

“The staff of Moses, got it from that box over there. It’s labeled ‘Exodus’.” Jon collapses unceremoniously onto the couch, with an air of easy languidness that comes off as nature. He leans on the armrest and points to the crate he had stepped on. “That one could be ‘Swan Lake’.”

Clark opens the lid and sure enough, it is stuffed with fake feathered wings that could have once been used as part of the costumes for angels or beautiful swans, but now all are squashed out of shape due to Jon’s weight. Clark goes through the contents almost absentmindedly, when he suddenly comes across a magnificent-looking crown that must have once been a prop belonging to the prince judging from the size.

“A prince’s crown?” He asks, holding up the replica made of copper, galvanized iron, tin, and glass beads.

“I think it belongs to Ludwig II[15].” Jon remarks, and does not keep the scoff out of his tone, but as soon as he finishes the sentence, he is abruptly made aware of the slip of a tongue. Gently, Jon bites his injured lips.

It is always the seemingly inconsequential actions that reveal the most, and Clark can practically smell the story. Red Hood Jon knows about the ‘Moon King’, and that is not something the average small-time crook would know. But then again, Jon is an educated man and had gone to college, so perhaps something stayed with him all this time just waiting for the right moment to shine.

Clark takes the prop crown and goes to the sofa. “Can I give you a coronation, Your Highness?” He reaches over for the man’s hoodie and slowly pulls it back. Jon stares at him, but does not refuse nor protest—perhaps the reason he opts to play along is because he has no extra energy left to complain after the thorough beating he received earlier that day.

Either way Jon lets Clark pull off his hoodie, and then his baseball cap. There is a healing bruise on his forehead with bits of dried blood, and as that reporter places the crown on his head in haste, he accidently presses the metal edges of the crown on the wound. The crown is heavier than it looks.

“My deepest gratitude, Your Holiness,” Jon smirks. He is covered in dirt from head to toe, leisurely sprawling on the couch with a fake crown on his head. Inexplicably, Jon starts to laugh, his grin pulling at the wound on his lip and causing droplets of fresh blood to fall. He looks ridiculous, like a madman, yet Clark cannot help but seize the opportunity to brush his fingers through those dark locks as he retrieves his hand.

“How does it look?” Jon asks.

“Awful,” Clark answers with a chortle.

Jon stretches lazily on the couch, positioning his injured leg up on the armrest, the crown remains lopsided still on his head. “The pain-relief spray is under the bed. See if you could reach it with that King Arthur’s sword there, sticking out of the third box by the door.”

“Your wish is my command,” Clark says, moving to straighten up before stopping to once again look the smaller man in the eyes. “Jon, can you tell me who hit you?”

“Derek, one of Maria’s sweethearts. Uh, and some of the girl’s old classmates.” Jon yawns as he idly makes himself comfortable between the cushions, and subsequently smearing more dirt onto the couch. “There were a lot of people,” he concludes.

“Why did they hit you?”

The crook stares at the ceiling as he thinks about the question. “Derek probably did it because I got away scot free and without needing to pay for bail the night before. As for Maria’s classmates, they probably did it just to fucking vent.”

“I bet you didn’t even fight back,” Clark points out sharply. “Otherwise I doubt you would be hurt this badly.”

“I would never hit a kid—even if said kid is a fucking bastard.” Jon pushes at the crown that has slid down to press against his brow. The size is a bit too big for him.

Clark stubbornly helps to adjust the thing back into place, then turns to look for that famed sword of King Arthur’s. When he returns after pulling Caliburn out from the box, Red Hood Jon is already fast asleep curled up on the couch.

His heartbeat is as soothing as Batman’s, meaning this time he really is sound asleep.

Clark meticulously removes the leaden crown as he hold the tin sword firmly in his other hand, before sitting down cross-legged onto the floor by the couch. He hauls his traveler bag over and pulls out the laptop, preparing to get to work; he then takes out the personal communicator given to him by Batman from his coat pocket, and places it into his ear.

And so there he is, underground, guarding a slumbering crook, as Superman awaits the summons of a vigilante.

 

 

 

 

* * *

  

**Author's Notes**

[15] Ludwig Otto Friedrich Wilhelm, King of Bavaria from 1864 until his death in 1886, of the House of Wittelsbach. He is sometimes called the Swan King, Mad King Ludwig or der Märchenkönig (the ‘Fairy Tale King’), and is famous for building the Neuschwanstein Castle. He died in Lake Starnberg under peculiar circumstances that remained a mystery till this day. Scholars today generally believe that Ludwig II is a homosexual; he loved Wagner’s operas and saw himself as the ‘Moon King’.

 

 

 

 


	10. Chapter 10

“Could you figure this out?” Kal remembered asking Batman back then.

He had pointed to a shadowy figure impossible to identify on the screen, the figure of a man—or most probably a man judging by the silhouette from behind, but was actually difficult to say for sure since there’re women who like to wear man’s clothing, not to mention the profile on the screen wasn’t even on the tall side. “His face should’ve reflected on the mirror over by the washstand,” he says, pointing to the outline on the looking glass. “There, that should be it.”

“It _is_  possible,” Batman had agreed. “But I’ll need some time to work on it.”

Thirty-six hours later Kal receives the call from Batman, “Come to the Watchtower Monitor Womb,” he tells him. “I’ll let you see the man’s face.”

To be honest Superman does not want to see that thing again, as it was a video taken from a hidden camera that had been installed diagonally above the washstand in the public bathroom of Skull Bay Blue. Due to the fact that the camera was designed for multi-directional filming with time-lapses in between, it did not have a continuous footage, but rather an alternating rotating 360 degree view. Batman installed it there in advance, hoping it could help identify the higher-ups of the drug trade and figure out who it was exactly did van Dessa send out to distribute powders and “cough syrup” amongst young errand kids. And so of course, it inevitably got a few shots of Maria from that night also.

She didn’t struggle much. She was bold, did the vein injection all on her own, mixing several high-purity drug powders before diluting them with the water from the sink. The syringe was taken from her bag without fingerprints from any other person, and that is in line with the confirmation from the police. Maria stood before the sink, her hands clutching the washbasin as she looked into the mirror. Batman had cleaned up the blurred images on the mirror as well, and an application software at the corner of the screen provided detailed screenshots of her face: her eyes bloodshot, filled with tears, but her expression was not unhappy as the tears were just another symptom of her drug addiction. She yawned and wiped her nose and saliva with a cotton pad. The cotton pad taken from the washstand, previously abandoned by someone else.

“She was only fourteen,” Kal says softly. He sits in front of the monitor screen, head downcast, with his hands covering his eyes.

“Do you still want to continue?” Batman sits beside him on a spare control seat, asking rather coolly. Kal is fairly certain he had been going over this video repeatedly.

Kal has seen how the vigilante would analyze things like these. The Bat would replay the most important parts of the footage shot-by-shot, until he found the breakthrough, and it wouldn’t matter much even if said image was as horrifying as a scene of babies getting slaughtered. This kind of behavior is a tantamount to self-flagellation to some extent. Batman or not, a human should not have to bear this much. Kal turns to shoot a glance at the guy wounded so tightly about on the seat, as he thinks to himself. The Bat is still wearing those visor goggles—with specially made lenses not even X-ray vision could pierce through—yet oddly enough Kal cannot help but sense the intensity of his stare.

“Just get straight to the issue at hand,” Kal says. He isn’t so fragile as to be unable to endure the entire length of that video, but he would rather not have the Bat suffer through it again just for his sake.

Batman taps his claws gently on the screen, his fingers moving with great dexterity as he inputted the timestamp for the corresponding video. A frame pauses and enlarges, then he enters the data parameter for a fixed filter. Very soon, the few precious images slowly come into sharp focus before their eyes. Kal watches the vigilante operate in silence, before it suddenly occurs to him that he has never seen the Bat’s bare hands, as the only exposed part of his skin is the chin. The images on the screen bring back memories of that night, and the feeling of a Gotham crook’s calloused fingertips pressing against him. Kal has not been in a relationship for quite some time, and the warmth of human flesh flushed, the touch of skin to skin, the intensity of an embrace, and Jon’s body… Kal uneasily shakes himself, expelling the distractingly inappropriate daydreaming.

With some help from the computer program, the illusory phantom in the opaque mirror gradually begins to reveal a human face. It was a man of African descent, well-dressed and estimated to be over forty years old. There was another presence right next to him, taller by half a head, with the face still blurry even after computerized enhancement, but could vaguely be made out that it was a woman with long brown hair. The visage of this woman had appeared once before when Maria had just arrived in the bathroom, and it was her that had given Maria the mixed drugs.

Maria collapsed about four minutes after the injection, and then those people appeared within range of the camera, with the Afro-American man as clearly the leader of the group. There were three others, one of them crouched down to inspect the girl’s pulse, but it is apparent the girl was still alive at that time. They did not move to help her however, as they probably thought her violent jerking was just a sign of her getting high, and then they left. The girl did not last long afterward, and three minutes later the police informant entered the bathroom, found the body, and proceeded to call the police.

Clark and Jon entered the bathroom two minutes before Maria did, and stayed in there for twenty-four minutes. The camera caught the images of them arriving and leaving. Due to the angle, only their faces were in view. Clark’s face was showed more clearly, Jon’s was still indistinct after digital enhancement, but that might be because his two layers of hats blocked off all the lightings.

“Clark Kent,” Batman points out. His tone is detached, as if said person is just another individual associated with the criminal case, rather than someone sitting right next to him. “The man behind you goes by the moniker Red Hood Jon, real name is currently unknown; he has been in Gotham City for two years and three months. He worked as a bodyguard for courtesans under Python van Dessa, but more importantly is that he is an extremely skilled thief and had once stolen several important evidences from GCPD for his boss. I have yet to get solid confirmation of him illegally holding drugs in his possession.”

“How do you do that?” Superman interrupts. “I mean… the images.”

“I scanned the mirrors to get accurate figures for the parameters, used the templates to model the filters, and then calculated the intensity along the light spectrum, including interference from reflections and refractions,” Batman answers.

“So you’ve been to the scene.” Kal nods, since it is evident enough that a precise scan as this could not be done with a mere camera. “When?”

“Yesterday,” Batman replies simply.

Of course he could get past the police officers easily and into the scene, Kal is sure about that. He is also somewhat glad the Bat had opted to do that himself instead of entrusting the job to him. For if he ever returned to the scene of that tragedy, he would inevitably be drowned in his own guilt—Batman always prefer to deal with problems in Gotham City alone anyways, rather than asking others for assistance. Thus Kal is fairly apprehensive of the possibility that the Bat included him in on the truth this time due to some sense of sympathy… because he felt pity for the turmoil twisting in Clark Kent’s poor heart.

Despite all that, the face of the brunette who had passed the drugs onto Maria remains unclear on the screen and the snapshot could not be handed in to Commissioner James Gordon as evidence. So the only gain out of this whole ordeal is the image of that middle-aged man’s face.

“African American, quite unexpected.” Batman brushes a thoughtful finger under his chin, “Organized crime syndicate of mixed ethnicity isn’t that common. And I had originally assumed Python van Dessa would be a German immigrant of Aryan descent, possibly with blond or darker hair color. I’ve tried reaching out to some mid-level gang members of his and noticed that he never uses Jews or Romani, and that there were also no Afro-Americans in the gang. Their preference for white males is pretty obvious.”

“There’s also the possibility that he’s not van Dessa.” Kal looks at the face; the man is skinny with typical African-American characteristics, a flat nose and intimating eyes, not too distinct for a man of mixed heritage.

“I have confirmation from a reliable source that van Dessa himself was in Skull Bay Blue that night,” Batman says, “His right-hand man has been arrested recently, so he needed a capable white male with enough credibility to take his place. Maria Weinster was not free of guilt, as she held a unique position in van Dessa’s syndicate: anyone who wanted to meet Python van Dessa would’ve needed to go through her.”

He taps the screen to minimize the pictures, before exiting the windows. The display screen gradually darkened, just as the screensaver animation blinks into place, and of course it would be of a blue truck patterned with red flame.

“Flash,” Batman hisses between clenched teeth when he sees the conspicuous truck, and Kal steals a quick glance at the man for the second time that day. Superman is positive he has heard the Bat grinding his molars and wonders if the vigilante would change the screensaver to “Justice League Monitor Duty Code of Conduct” at once before permanently locking it with a complex 64 digits passcode.

He doesn’t. This time at least.

The vigilante glares at the screensaver some more. “According to my sources, there is a seventy percent likelihood that the candidate for van Dessa’s new assistant was Red Hood Jon, and that Maria Weinster originally intended to introduce them to each other that night.”

 

 

 

 

 


	11. Chapter 11

That evening, Clark sits on the floorboard leafing through free magazines taken from the subway station absentmindedly, reading the text printed on bland coupons selling hamburgers and fried chicken, pizzas and pastas, soft beverage giveaways, discount for trinket sells, et cetera. He isn’t hungry per se, just flipping through the pages in boredom as he occasionally sneaks glances at Jon.

“Tell me some more about your uncle,” Clark says out of the blue and, to reduce the awkwardness between them due to the prying nature of the question, casually points at a random discount coupon listed in the magazine. “Hey! This assorted pizza parlor looks solid, you know how to get there from here?”

“That parlor is just outside Dixon Dock, but you have to cross the main district to get there.” Jon grabs the magazine to take a look, before shoving it back into Clark’s hand, “The store coupon on the upper right corner is much closer, but the smoked sausages there is absolute garbage.”

And so under the stubborn demand of the one who isn’t even hungry in the first place, they go out for a long walk, crossing through the main district to get assorted pizza. On their return trip, they take a detour to try the so-called “garbage” food also.

Jon slept well these past two days, so he is in a fairly good mood—Clark can tell from his tone and style of speech. He hasn’t said a “fuck” or “damn” in the past 48 hours, although another reason for that could be a result of he having been asleep for over 40 of those 48 hours.

Clark went out for errands seven or eight times during this time, for Justice League missions, helping to salvage a truck that accidently drove into the water in a town near the outskirt of Metropolis, before doubling back for pictures around Eastend Park and to interview a few people sitting in meditation over by the park gates. And of course, Clark also went to a convenience store for food and daily necessities, and then got the free magazine when he passed the subway station. His personal hygiene kit wasn’t originally packed for two people’s use, so he needed to restock, and this time Clark bought some bottled wash, even a new Gillette razor and aftershave for Jon.

Speaking of which, Jon’s hair grew really slow, as Clark has never seen him shave in the days they spent together, yet his beard wasn’t growing out like some Siberian man, though it could be because Jon treated himself so poorly that his health suffered. But that Clark cannot say for sure, as he cannot use himself as a baseline for human norms: his development during his adolescence years happened more slowly compared to his peers, almost as if his growth had been completely stunted, and as a result he had been mercilessly ridiculed. Until one day he came to a sudden understanding, that he is just an outside imitator mimicking the development stages of true human physiology, and that the indignities he suffered all these years were ultimately for nothing. And in the end, when those that used to mock his difference got busy flaunting their individuality, Clark struggled to hide his abilities just to avoid be seen as a monster.

Jon received a bad round of beating after Maria died, but any setback he felt over this incident evaporated after a long night of rest. When Kal-El once again returns to the rental house via crawling through the window next to the trashcan, he finds that Jon has already washed his face and hair clean, and is evidently in a pleasant mood as he cooks lunch meat with baked beans using the communal kitchen on the first floor.

So, temporary tenant of Gotham Swamp, downtrodden wounded victim, bodyguard of prostitutes, and renowned thief—also apparently king of junk food, Clark thinks, but most importantly the candidate for a drug syndicate second-in-command.

Clark doesn’t know how many other identities Mr. Red Hood has in this world, but he truly believes that the man is getting better—depravity is like an illness, you could get depressed, weak, sluggish, but you could also be healed with the right medication and treatment. The recuperation of a damaged soul often takes longer than the healing of a physical wound, and you need the support of someone around you—Clark believes he plays such a role, to hamper the loneliness in Jon’s heart.

He can’t say for sure how much influence he has over the other man, but he is at least certain about one thing: Jon allows him to come and go at will as he sleeps. For that Clark is grateful, and it prompts him to hold firm the resolve to use the last of his time in Gotham City to prevent Jon from further engaging with van Dessa’s gang.

Even if it meant breaking his promise to Batman.

For if Red Hood Jon vanished from the equation, that Afro-American mobster would be forced to choose another person as his next second-in-command. Clark would keep a close eye on Jon during this time, to make sure he miss this “promotion” opportunity, let him and the local gang drift apart. And the rest would be Batman’s problem.

So Superman swiftly switches back to the Clark Kent persona and squeezes himself into the kitchen. “What’s this? Looks like baked beans from cans.”

“It _is_ baked beans from cans.” Jon uses a long-handled steel spoon to stir the mixed stew in the pan, scooping up a spoonful of it to him. “Have a taste?”

Clark leans over to take some steaming stew into his mouth, it tastes pretty standard for canned food—and there’s an adjective he can think of to describe it. “Well, tastes like marijuana,” he says cheekily as he chews.

Jon freezes for a short second, before bursting into delighted laughter, voice ringing loud and clear, and with the task of stirring canned vegetables completely forgotten and abandoned. So Clark decides to take over for him. “Where did you even get the cooking pan?” Clark stirs the mixed stew as he continues to steal beans from the broth. He hopes such childish act would make Jon laugh longer, and it does.

“From Mrs. White,” says Jon. “And she told me she ‘has no pots and no pans!’ when I first went to her without washing my face and hair.” He tilts his head to mimic Mrs. White’s shrill tone and movement, his posture lifelike but slightly exaggerated with a flair for the dramatic. A good thief must also be a good actor. Clark observes, thinking he should probably reevaluate this person.

Later, they would go back to the basement room together, after using the same spoon to eat baked beans and beef from the same pan, and then they would fall asleep in the same bed. Naturally Jon does not offer an invitation to join him this second time, and likewise Clark does not wait for him to do so.

They are a bit better at deciding the acceptable boundaries, with Jon moving closer to the wall so that Clark would not have half of his body hanging outside the bed. Jon still doesn’t undress, but he silently accepts the T-shirt and clean jeans Clark hands him. This shouldn’t be counted as progress though, since his original clothing is like a plate of disgusting chowder painted with ketchup and mustard stains, and that it really should not come in contact with the bedsheet. Clark uses shower as an excuse to take a short walk around the block, and when he gets back, Jon is already freshly changed and lying in bed with his eyes closed.

But he is certainly not asleep, as Clark can hear his heart thumping erratically in his chest. Probably even more erratically than way back when he set out to steal his very first wallet.

“And here I thought I could finally continue my interview.” Clark discreetly turns on the recorder and places it on the pillow, before lying on methodically beside the thief. And at once he is struck by a strange feeling, here, in this basement, and he wonders whether he is performing these tasks too much in a ceremonial fashion.

“Ask whatever you want,” Jon mutters next to him, rolling over to face the wall. One more detail to show that they are more sensible than last time, in that they now each get their own pillows. It is much more comfortable this way.

“How do you feel about your university life? You said you didn’t finish it.” Clark lies stiffly with his elbow pressed against Jon’s lower back, and the heat coming from the warm body next to him. Clark tries to move, a foolish attempt no doubt, and promptly feels Jon’s back muscles tense.

“Oh, not bad I suppose, but I often stayed out at night, wandering among the homeless. I skipped exams, and that caused a big headache for school administrators. And I picked fights with fraternities, stole their gals and then abandoned them. I was cursed day and night among tears and fists.” Jon mumbles in a monotone without an ounce of passion. It’s very likely that he did not get what he wanted in those days, and so he casted them aside, just like those women he did not cherish.

So is this poetic retribution, that he ended up a homeless tramp, with a nosy journalist by his side rather than a beautiful wife who love him.

“Sounds cool,” Clark says dryly. He thinks for a moment as he chooses his wording, “Do you have a woman you are interested in, Jon? I mean… have you ever fallen in love? Correct me if I’m wrong but to be honest, I feel like you could be a bisexual.”

This question doesn’t have much of an effect on the state of Jon’s heartbeat, but it could be because it is not very steady to begin with. “Is this because of what I did to you in the bar?” He asks faintly.

“Yes, of course.”

Jon rolls over again, but instead of turning over to face his roommate, he flips to bury his face deeper into the pillow. He sighs, long and heavy, as if he were breathing the fragrance of hallucinogenic smoke. And then he tells a story.

“I loved a good girl once upon a time, but in the end I chose to give her up for another woman, a pessimistic old woman late into her years. She is desperate, decadent, yet stunning still. She has wealth and despair and so many scars. She indulges in her lascivious way and has too many amoral lovers. But she is the love of my life, and the reason I can never go back. She made me who I am today, and I never regretted it. I love her, Clark. I love her.”

This is the first time he called the journalist by name, not “hey” or something similar, and not a condescending “idiot” or a mocking “baby cousin” or even a “damn fucking bastard” hissed with indignation. Speaking of such deep affection out loud causes his heart to thump in his chest, thundering like drumbeats. Jon’s body heats up in a flush and Clark leans toward him as he deliberately stretches out his arm so that they could touch from shoulder to fingertips, greedily sharing the passion of his love, it is almost like stealing.

“As for being a bisexual, I think that old woman I love is also a bisexual,” Jon says. He sighs again as he finished the personal tale, burying himself deeper under the pillow in the dark. After a while, for about ten minutes, as Clark waits patiently and does not make a sound that the thief probably thought his roommate has fallen asleep, Jon turns back around to face him. Another few minutes, and then he reaches out across the bigger man’s body to get the recorder, to turn it off.

Thank God he does not delete any entries, and seems content to fall immediately into the alluring abyss of sleep. Jon does not remember to withdraw his arm.

The next day Clark wakes up to find Jon now has more than half of his torso draped over his person, as opposed to the single arm last night, proving that he has officially been downgraded from roommate to mattress. The kleptomaniacal crook is clinging to his chest with the use of all his limbs, with the injured leg resting across his stomach and hands griping almost aggressively at his arm. And self-consciously, Clark notes the possibility that he has just discovered a masochistic side, as he wakes up that day feeling relaxed and happy despite the uncomfortable sleeping condition. He is in such a good mood that he not only takes extra care when leaving the bed, but also happily schedules to spend money grocery shopping for that guy later in the day.

As per usual, he first goes to Eastend Park to conduct interviews, finishing the jobs of Clark Kent, and then he goes to the Watchtower to work on Superman’s duties. On the fifth day after Maria’s death, he finally overcomes his state of human-like mentality and also simulated gravity, to once again float through the Watchtower spiral hallway.

“Kal, you’re whistling.” Hawkgirl Shayera blocks Kal’s path when he drifts across the cafeteria, and she stares at him with a critical eye as she points out her observation in an analytical fashion. Her tone of voice sounds better suited to say “Kal, technological instrument deduces your emotional-control is currently sixty percent compromised” or “Kal, large quantity of apples has gone missing from the Watchtower daily and you’re the prime suspect” or something along those lines. But what she actually said was, “Kal, you’re whistling.” And in such serious manner that it is as if she was possessed by Batman.

“Did I?” Kal asks, too cheerfully. “Which song?”

Hawkgirl shakes her head, indicating that she is not familiar with the musical culture of Earth. She moves back a little. “Go on then,” she says.

He continues to whistle as he returns to Gotham Swamp carrying large grocery bags, wading through the mud in sneakers and getting them so unprecedentedly dirty no one would ever believe that he had just been to space. He meets Mrs. White at the mouth of the alley, and greets her with a simple “Hi” and a nod.

“Oh, cutie pie, you’re such an honest man.” That is how she addresses him, her eyes full of laughter. “You must’ve been sent by God.” She reaches into her faux-Ethiopian dress and produces a half-melted Almond Roca chocolate, only to gift it away as if he is some sort of adorably large glasses-wearing puppy.

Clark returns to the basement to find Red Hood Jon still soundly asleep, but of course he would be since he is a lazy slacker that loves to daydream. And so Clark Kent does what an actual younger cousin would do: he takes off his shoes to climb onto the bed, and start kneading Jon’s hair while purposefully ignoring those resulting exclamations of indignant complaints. He drags the man out of bed and coerces him into brushing his teeth, using a piece of candy as reward.

Clark takes Jon on a tour around the city via elevated monorail ride that day, and they have pizza. Stay with him and keep a close eye on him, everything’s under control. He descends from the heaven armed with utmost sincerity, and in just a little more than a week, he will help change a man’s future for the better.

They are walking down the only road in 23rd Street district with streetlamps in perfect functioning condition as dusk gives way to night. Those old-modeled light fixtures illuminate dim hazy glows, giving off an illusion akin to a century old London street on foggy nights. And they walk side-by-side in the fog, Jon digging for a cigarette and Clark asking for one too.

“Tell me some more about your uncle,” Clark sticks the cigarette into his mouth and takes out the recorder.

“He is a gentleman, and overindulges me.” Jon again doesn’t finish the whole roll of tobacco, he is not addicted to smoking it seems, and that he only smokes to calm his nerves. According to Clark’s observation, Jon doesn’t have problems with drug abuse or alcoholism either, and—not counting his physical injuries—he is to all appearances a healthy man down on his luck.

Jon’s cigarette pack is emptied, so he heads to the nearest 7-11 convenience store and Clark waits for him outside under the street light. He turns down the replay volume of the recorder and places it next to his ear, like how average human with limited hearing range would. He brings up the last recording from last night.

“… I love her, Clark. I love her.” Jon’s hushed baritone sounds deep in his ear, like a detached whisper. Clark, the voice calls. Clark.

Clark rewinds to listen to those uttered words several times over, then suddenly turns off the apparatus as he looks up. Things are too good to be true, too surreal, and his emotional-control is sixty percent compromised. He is abruptly aware of the fact that Jon has been gone for ten minutes, and buying a pack of cigarette does not take nearly that long.

He tells himself not to be so paranoid, after all with him standing guard by the store where else could the man go? He has to put the voice recorder away first, or he might accidently break it between his fingers; then he has to remember to be meticulous as he push open the glass doors, to remind himself how fragile the world is that he could so easily break things. Convenience stores tend to have only one entryway that also serves as the exit, you have to pay first before you leave, otherwise the sensors would go off. Did he hear the sensor alarms? No, he did not.

Jon would not steal at a convenience store. He may wear two layers of hats and dress like a shoplifter, but he is a highly skilled thief with kleptomaniac pride. He would not condescend himself to so petty a crime as shoplifting in a convenience store. So Clark concludes that since he did not hear anything out of ordinary, he should spot Jon once he gets inside the store.

He pushes open the glass doors and enters, moving to ask the first person he lands his eyes on—the cashier. He doesn’t know the sort of sound his voice is making, since the dawning apprehension of dread completely drowned out his sense of hearing. Later, he would chastise himself for possibly using his Superman resonance, but at the time he doesn’t fucking care.

He asks, “Did a guy with a red hood come in to buy cigarettes just now?”

The clerk, thirty-something-year-old of Spanish descent, brunette and bucktooth with a pretty appearance. Spanish, like the Spanish girl on the stage play.

Stage play. Stage props. Staffs and crowns and swords and wings. Ludwig, _Lohengrin_ [16][T8]. He’s going insane, fuck.

The clerk looks up and thinks for a moment before answering, “The man you spoke of left through the door in the storage room. He said he was looking for the restroom so I pointed him in the right direction.”

Clark is not insane, neither is he as he race insanely toward the backroom, opening the door or simply smashing it out of the way. He can fly, scan the whole city to pinpoint Jon’s heartbeat. Chase after him, capture him.

There is no need.

 

 

 

 

* * *

 

 **Author's Notes**  

[16]  _Lohengrin_ , is a Romantic opera in three acts composed and written by Richard Wagner, first performed in 1850. It tells the story of how the Swan Knight Lohengrin is sent to the duchess of Brabant Elsa to defend her, and the tragic love that followed. In the play, the Knight protects and would marry the Duchess Elsa, but only under the condition that she must never ask his name and identity, otherwise he would be forced to leave her. Elsa would eventually violate this requirement due to suspicion, and the two lovers thus forced apart. Wagner took up these characters and set the “forbidden question” theme at the core of a story which makes contrasts between the godly and the mundane. 

 

**Translator's Notes**

[T8] Wagner wrote the following in Mitteilungen an meine Freunde about his Lohengrin plans: “Who doesn’t know ‘Zeus and Semele’? The god is in love with a human woman and approaches her in human form. The lover finds that she cannot recognize the god in this form, and demands that he should make the real sensual form of his being known. Zeus knows that she would be destroyed by the sight of his real self. He suffers in this awareness, suffers knowing that he must fulfill this demand and in doing so ruin their love. He will seal his own doom when the gleam of his godly form destroys his lover. Is the man who craves for God not destroyed?”

A god and his human lover who cannot recognize the god in this form. Know that a lot of the references (history, myths, stage plays) in this story are allusions to different aspects of the relationship between Clark/Kal/Superman and Bruce/Jon/Batman.

 

 

 

 


End file.
